We know that everything we experience is experienced in our brain and that we actually see, feel, hear is actually via our brain’s ability to interpret our environment. This is science. So I guess what we believe to be on the outside is, in fact, inside of us….We are a cloud of atoms and molecules within a bigger cloud of atoms and molecules and my mind boggles when I try to think about this. The real part of me is simply consciousness and what that actually is, I think from a scientific point of view, is still a mystery.
If everything really is inside of us – or, our experience of our environment is inside of us, then logic suggests that we must create this reality as an interpreted image of actuality – whatever that may be. Herein lies the basis of magick for me. If, we are able to consciously influence our reality using natural laws, then we are capable of making magick. Both mystical magick in that we can change ourselves via will and physical magick in that we can cause an effect in our environment beyond ourselves.
But why can’t we just do this? We are all magicians but we have lost our power to make magick.
I suspect that part of our problem is that we have centered ourselves inside our outside! We dream a waking dream and allow ourselves to be controlled like robots. But didn’t we create our own reality? So are we not sleeping because we created it that way? Possibly and possibly not. Perhaps our true task is to see the prison we have created for ourselves and escape from it via will. This is the ‘know thyself’ instruction. One must truly know oneself in order to live in the NOW and consciously create a better reality.
For me, this is almost an impossibility. I have moments, glimpses even, of a better reality in which I feel a sudden sense of knowing myself and understanding I am ALL and connected to ALL. However, these fleeting and all too rare moments pass back into a dreary sleeplike state in which I am going through the motions.
We are conditioned to this and to escape it demands a retraining. A new conditioning.
As I read about Afghans killing people and burning flags because the Koran was burned apparently inadvertently at a US military base I feel sad. These people are locked into and conditioned not to think, not to question, but to obey. We have a long way to go and sometimes I wonder if we aren’t sinking further into materialism. Or – is this just the reality that I am creating? How can burning a book, even if the word of God, justify the killing of another human? We are all connected and in killing I kill a part of myself.
If we remember that we are flawed and conditioned creatures creating reality then we should also be aware that we project ourselves onto others. I interpret other’s actions and I read my own thought process in those actions. What I dislike about someone is in fact the recognition of that trait in myself and I dislike myself. I know that one thing I have developed as a result of several years of on and off meditation and study is an ability to recognize a bit of this. I find I can often second guess motives and actions of other people because I have an inkling of how I would react…..
It’s a complex topic. Any thoughts?