There is a related
topic to this term that I came across in Brendan Myers’ wonderful “Clear and Present Thinking” (available for free here): world view. From Mr. Myers’ book, I understand that the
term ‘world view’ was first used by the German philosopher Albert Schweitzer,
in a book called “The Decay and
Restoration of Civilization”. The term basically means a plan of reality,
and includes our view of what constitutes reality, and also how one should
live, what one should try to do with one’s life. As an example of world view,
someone may not accept the existence of anything non-physical, let alone life
after death, and therefore base all their decisions on, perhaps. living for the
moment. Other world views may accept the existence of the nonphysical, and have
an ethical code based on caring. (Some
people who do not accept the existence of the nonphysical may still have a
strong belief in caring.)
When I am referring
to ‘the Nature of Reality’, I am referring to that aspect of my worldview which
covers the purpose and organisation of both physical and nonphysical components
of reality, including why we are here, incarnate.
In my metaphysical
studies, I found a significant amount of emphasis was given to illustrating
that ‘reality’ is not necessarily what our five sense (Mr Myers suggests that thinking makes the brain a sixth sense, which I
am inclined to agree with) indicate it is. The best example I can recall of
that is the view that atoms not being all solid, being instead rather like a
miniscule solar system with a few bits of matter and lots of space. Another oft
quoted example is Einstein’s famous equation E = MC2.
These arguments would
then typically lead into some sort of justification of the existence of the
nonphysical components of Reality.
I’m not interested in
getting into that ‘debate’: as far as I am concerned, in the context of this
glossary (i.e., an explanation of what I
mean when I use various terms on my Musings of Gnwmythr blog), I am going to take the existence
of the nonphysical as a given.
Furthermore, humans
have done a considerable amount of work to map the nonphysical – e.g., as one
increases frequency above the physical, which is the lowest fundamental
frequency of energy of existence, one encounters the etheric, astral, and so on.
Metaphysically, each
of these levels is viewed as having been created and then sustained by the
level above it. Science is focused largely on the physical, in which it is
doing largely a good job, but attempting to find nonphysical levels is a bit
like trying to use radar to find the existence of visible light. Kirlian photography
has stumbled into the etheric a little, and the work of Kilner in London in the
early 20th Century started to get into the astral, but that’s
largely about it – oh, apart from some
of the investigations into ESP. (Lyall Watson writes well
about this in the first “Supernature”.)
I will write a
definition about these levels of Reality in due course.
Spiritually speaking,
Reality exists so we can have experience and thus become richer, more loving,
more mature human beings. This is partly why this level of Reality is sometimes
described as the world of illusion: physical survival and social stats and
other fleeting material things may seem to be important, but it is the things
of our Souls that truly matter.
The other reasons
this is described as the world of illusion is that we are not as aware of nonphysical
levels of Reality as we are of the physical. This is often illustrated, in the
last Century or so, by the fact that atoms are largely space, and thus what
seems solid to us is not ‘really’. Well, I actually think that is a bit of a
misinterpretation – bad science, in a sense. My view is that the view that this
world is a world of illusion is best applied to values and our perspectives,
not physical reality itself.
I also urge against any tendency to see this physical world
as somehow lacking in validity or beauty or things that are noble and good in
comparison to other levels: it doesn’t. Our view of the physical world is
likely to be warped by the extremely negative times that we live in – the
injustice and suffering that is so rife in human society. But there is great
beauty in Nature, and our flaws and social mistakes will eventually be
overcome, and then people will wonder how anyone could have not wanted to enjoy
the experience of living here. It’s just that such isn’t likely to happen in
our life time … Change and evolution (growth)
are ‘constants’ in all levels of Reality :)
As of the time this
definition was written, I’ve touched on this idea in the following posts:
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