Objective and Subjective Realities

There are two kinds of activities that we can get engaged in. There is the usual outward-going action wherein we move from one object to another, from one form to another, from one place to another. Most of our life, at least for much of humanity, is occupied with this outward going activity. As the result of this intense and hectic activity we get tired and feel the need to relax. But this relaxation is also largely sense-driven. We turn our television sets or computers on for our favorite movie or serial we haven’t watched or to get a news feed. We are still gazing at the world of form as conjured by the senses.

But there is another world that awaits our discovery. It is within us, around us, everywhere and in everything. It is a world within this outward world woven by the senses and the outward gazing mind. To discover this world we have to engage in another kind of activity. It is to go within. To go within means to explore our inner subjective being. This subjective being is a world where forms and figures do not offer much of a foothold. But for that reason it is not something unreal or non-existence. It is just that we have not cared or dared to enter this domain or map its hidden territories. We are habitually accustomed only to regard the world of forms and figures alone as true. We call it the objective world. But late do we discover that this objective world including the events and circumstances that we meet in our life is a projection of our inner subjective reality. What our thoughts conceive, what our faith sees, what our inner wishes and hopes and longs to that the outer world begins to conjure for us. This is not to say that our mind builds the universe and that there is no independent reality than what our mind conceives. However, if we take a careful look at the objective world of forms we shall be forced to conclude with material science that there is something that acts upon the indeterminate chaos of electric charges and turns them into forms. The spiritual vision would say that it is due to the action of the cosmic mind, called as Maya in ancient Indian thought.

But something of this cosmic mind, a partial and limited power is there within us as what we call as our own mind though in fact it is simply a selection out of the universal mind. Our thoughts and imagination, wishes and impulses, will and emotions all add or take away the colours of creation, modify the objective world to give us a very limited personalized experience of Reality. It is only when we disengage from this habitual association of forms with our senses and mind that we can truly start seeing things as they are and not as our mind, even some cosmic Mind has conceived and presented before us. To discover this Reality that hides behind the objective world of figures and forms we have to enter into the subjective spaces of our inner being first. We have to go past not only gross forms but also subtle forms that take the shape of thoughts and waves of feelings, or of visions and voices. Thus going deeper we touch that from which all springs forth. We recognize states of consciousness which give a special colour and flavor to existence. Once we have reached that then there is only one step further. It is to touch that pure Consciousness, pure Existence whose nature is Peace and Delight. Then this objective world yields its own deeper Truth. The meshes of ignorance are cut asunder and all discloses the Divine Beloved.