What if reality was much better than it seems to be? (Good news, it is!)

I've had a "what if?" blog post on my mind for quite a while. Might as well try to get it off my mind and into written form, though if this was easy for me to do, I'd have done it sooner. Anyway, here goes...

Most of us, me certainly included, are looking for ways to make reality more pleasant.

This quest goes in many different directions: family life, career, health, friendships, religion, hobbies, athletic pursuits, spirituality, art, romance, and all the other areas where we wish there wasn't such a large gap between what is and what we'd like to be.

Often these efforts require a lot of work. It may not be easy to alter the trajectory of life so that it better matches where we'd like to land our personal Flight to Happiness. 

Another complication is that both popular culture and religious teachings hold out the hope that it's possible to attain a state of consciousness, or being, where in one fell swoop, one major transformation, one overturning of old understandings, we look upon life in an entirely different fashion.

A better fashion, usually, though not always, because some people would prefer knowing how the world really is, even if that reality is disturbing.

So The Matrix presents a choice between taking the red or blue pill, with red leading to a life-changing truth, and blue to reality as it currently appears to be. Some forms of Zen Buddhism embrace the possibility of a sudden enlightenment or realization that overturns existing worldviews. Rumi and other mystical story-tellers speak of seekers looking for truth in far-off places, only to discover that what they longed for was right at home, so close it required no searching at all.

I've got my own "what if?" fantasy. Yet to me, it isn't a fantasy, though I recognize that it will appear that way to other people. 

What if, I wonder, it was possible to attain a state of consciousness where all of the apparent problems of life, all those things we wish were different from how they actually are, were seen to be just fine, unable to be anything other than their current state?

I also wonder, what if it was possible to attain a state of consciousness where all the things we have done, are doing, and will do were seen to be equally just fine, unable to be anything other that what actually occurred?

And lastly, I wonder what if it was possible to attain a state of consciousness where all efforts aimed at preserving our sense of identity as a separate, independent, enduring self were seen to be unnecessary, because who we are right now is just fine, as is whoever we might become in the future?

Wouldn't these three what if attainments be a huge relief? Wouldn't we feel a large weight lifted from our psychological shoulders? Wouldn't life be much more pleasant without the worries caused by viewing the past, present, and future as filled with problems that demand our attention?

I'd say so. 

I also say that for me, you, and everybody in the world, without exception, each of those what if's isn't something to be attained, but something to enjoy right now. 

Because there's good reason -- no, excellent reason -- to believe that (1) determinism controls what happens in the world, which includes us, so whatever has happened, is happening, and will happen necessarily had to be just as it was, is, or will be; (2) in line with this, free will is an illusion; and (3) the notion of a enduring self or soul also is an illusion, since we are a wave temporarily tossed up by the ocean of the world, not an entity separate from the ever-changing reality that surrounds us and indeed is us.

Too good to be true? Absolutely not. This is both scientific truth and spiritual truth, so long as "spiritual" is understood to mean a deep understanding of life, not anything supernatural. But it isn't easy to truly grasp this truth and experience it in everyday life.

I suspect the reason is that it is so simple and close at hand, we look in vain for something complex and distant.

Comments

[Ron E.]

I like your ‘What if’s’ list Brian. I’ll quickly throw in Joan Tollifson’s home page entitled 'The Simplicity of Just This'. I have a few comments in mind regarding your three ‘I wonder’ points to add later. Off for a walk now.

'The Simplicity of Just This’.

We habitually search for special experiences, for certainty and something to grasp. But in holding on to nothing at all, there is immense openness and freedom.

Experience is ever-changing while never departing from the immediacy of here-now. It is infinitely varied but can never actually be divided up or pulled apart. There is no boundary between inside and outside. A person is like a waving of the ocean—an ever-changing movement inseparable from the whole.

Thought labels, divides, categorizes, interprets and seemingly concretizes this seamless, boundless, centerless, inconceivable flow of experience, creating the illusion of an apparently separate self in an apparently solid world. This phantom self is supposedly authoring our thoughts and making our choices. But none of this holds up to scrutiny.

Our urges, desires, impulses, interests, preferences, abilities, talents, thoughts and actions emerge unbidden. Nothing could be other than exactly how it is in this moment. Seeing this is the freedom to be as we are and for everything to be as it is.

What is offered here invites firsthand exploration and direct discovery, not belief or dogma. It points to the simplicity of being what we cannot not be, this one bottomless moment, right here, right now. There is no finish-line, no formula, no method, nowhere to go, only this ever-fresh aliveness, just as it is.

[Ron E.]

@ Brian “Some forms of Zen Buddhism embrace the possibility of a sudden enlightenment or realization that overturns existing worldviews.”

Some schools in Chan Buddhism taught sudden or gradual enlightenment. Today I have come across the term silent illumination which I believe is the western equivalent. Sudden enlightenment and silent illumination sound quite dramatic but my understanding is that such experiences do not involve some stupendous state, more to do with the realisation that our extraordinary mind – the mind of thought, knowledge and information – becomes quiescent enough for the realisation that such a mind is the source of our vexations, or in Buddhist terms, our suffering.

The ’mind’ that remains is the mind that basically is reflected in Brian’s three ‘what if’s’

I would like though to add my own what if. What if consciousness is ‘no thing’ in particular but just the brains awareness of things (information and experiences, similar to what J. Krishnamurti used to call contents.) Though I understand the term we use ‘state of consciousness’ as being an almost universal way to describe this phenomenon. Rather, I would prefer to see the conscious experience as one of the brains' mental attributes enabling reflection and planning (memory and projection) to just, well, survive.

The construct of a separate self emerging from within the collection of the brain’s data and accumulated knowledge would explain how we come to believe in such a persistent self. Yes, as Brian ‘What if’s’ propose, it would all be a great weight ‘off our minds’

[Karim W. Rahmaan]

"What if, I wonder, it was possible to attain a state of consciousness where all of the apparent problems of life, all those things we wish were different from how they actually are, were seen to be just fine, unable to be anything other than their current state?..

..Too good to be true? Absolutely not. This is both scientific truth and spiritual truth, so long as "spiritual" is understood to mean a deep understanding of life, not anything supernatural."

Posted by: Brian Hines in Free will, Meaning of life, Reality | May 26, 2024 at 10:13 PM

This seems like an epiphany but..

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spiritual

(adjective)

The way you're using this word. It gives you some wiggle room at def. meaning #4:

Spirit

Which could mean; deep understanding or one's inner emotional feelings. But, in some parts of the world it also can mean - an alcoholic beverage.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spirit

(noun)