In a facebook discussion, the question, “what is real?” came up.  The context was in regard to the reality of idealized experiences or what we actually experience in the the world.  We were also discussing how the survival mentality affected one’s experience of reality. The response I came up with is below. Sometimes when these types of responses come out of me even I wonder if I’m full of it. But for the most part, they come out of the question being asked and without any effort on my part. They just show up. So what is real to you? What emerges in consciousness when you consider this question?

I think that part of us which we think “must survive” never will. Survival implies threat. That which is threatened is not real. According to my definition, real is what is eternal. Consciousness is real. As is that which is born out of consciousness. I too think it seems unfortunate that 90% of us are unconscious 70% of the time which is what I believe causes us to see importance where it actually is not. It is why we end up serving our mental, physical, and emotional constructs rather than being served by them as was intended. “Sabbath was conceived for humanity not humanity for the sabbath” was how Jesus said it. What we idealize can be real if what we idealize is consciousness. Through meditation I have come to know that this is something we can experience and it is the essence of our being. However, I can admit that it seems very difficult to “maintain” this knowing to the degree that one is attached to the conditional experiences of the Earth plane. We truly can’t take it with us even into deep meditation where we come into contact with the No-thingness–the womb of infinite and yet uncreated and unformed possibilities. I see it as the “void” of Genesis 1. It is the eternal real I am talking about that cannot be threatened by temporal conditions. Everything else fades. I believe that if we allow ourselves to become increasingly intimate with our own No-thingness, the things that we hope to gain or fear losing will have less pull on us thus enabling us, by some paradox, to create from the infinite and still place of Origin–the zero point where all that emerges is One with all appearings in the temporal thus marrying the finite to the infinite.

Or not.