Reality Perceives Itself Through You
Most people instinctively believe themselves to be individual subjects housed inside separate bodies actively perceiving an external reality. As such, their lives are often fraught with a subconscious sense of separation or lack and some form of psychological suffering. But there is another perspective, the implications of which challenge conventional thinking and deeply embedded assumptions. If you are a genuine seeker of truth, and if you are serious and willing to see this other viewpoint through, a fundamental sense of abiding peace is readily available.
The nondual understanding recognizes a single, indivisible consciousness as the ground of all being. In religious traditions this ground of being is commonly called God. Consciousness, or awareness, is not a separate, stand-alone entity or reality. Nor could there possibly be an external entity or reality existing independently of awareness. (This article explores why.)
All appearances of subjects and objects are perceptual experiences within awareness. Without awareness, no subject or object can be known. To use religious language, awareness is the alpha and omega in terms of space and time, although, as we will explore, awareness is not bound by space or time.
For perception to occur, there must be a seer separate from the seen. But in the nondual framework, the sense of a fundamental separation collapses. What we experience as perception is a dynamic interplay within a unified field.
Consciousness, in its inherent dynamism, expresses itself through localized forms. Those perceptual faculties are points of focus, temporary apertures through which consciousness experiences its own multifaceted nature.
When light passes through different types of lenses, the light itself remains pure and undifferentiated, though each lens gives the light a distinct hue and quality. In the same way, consciousness manifests itself through different body-minds to experience unique perspectives within itself. The individual experience of the world—the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile sensations—are not external realities but rather the one reality sensing and perceiving its own limitless potential.
The belief and feeling of separation occurs when the mind’s identification, “I am perceiving this,” arises within a localized expression of consciousness. When this illusory identity softens there is an opening for this recognition: the consciousness that is aware of the perception is the same consciousness that constitutes the perception. In other words, the perceiver and the perceived are not two distinct entities. Both arise within the same field of consciousness, as consciousness, and, by consciousness the perception is known. There is only consciousness knowing consciousness. The activity of the mind divides, labels and conceptualizes experience for practical purposes, but the consciousness that knows this content is one seamless whole.
So the nondual understanding dissolves the sense of being a limited individual surviving in an external world. In reality, the self is a perceptual window through which consciousness experiences itself as the world. It is in this sense that we are one with the universe, not as separate, personal selves but as consciousness, as shared being.
It is important to note here that such a shift in perspective does not diminish the richness or uniqueness of our individual experience. Quite the opposite. Just as each colored lens presents a distinct modulation of the same light, each life offers a unique perspective of the ultimate reality of consciousness. So while the “you” that you take yourself to be is not the knower of perception but rather the vehicle through which perception is known, the real you, consciousness, is the only knower there is.
True essence, awareness, exists in the timeless now. It is birthless, deathless and unchanging. To embody this understanding is to see through the activity of the egoic mind and to recognize the observable world for what it is.
The world is not happening to you; the world is happening as you. The universe is not something you look at. You are the eyes of the universe.