We are in the midst of a historical moment where the fundamentals of a new reality paradigm are just now able to be discerned. The scientific and intellectual revolutions of the 20th century: relativity, quantum physics, psychoanalysis, chaos theory, and more, revealed a world in which the old classical absolutes of time, space, matter, energy, the stable self – indeed the classical distinction between objective and subjective reality – were swept away in a hundred ways by experimental evidence and theoretical frameworks which confounded our traditional views of ourselves, our world, and the universe.
In every field of knowledge, the central role of the self, the observer, consciousness itself, was acknowledged to occupy a position equal in every way to the facts of material existence. It became indisputable in a series of now-famous scientific experiments that the existence and participation of the observer is as significant to the complete description of an event as are the material parameters of what was once referred to as “objective reality.”
With the understanding that our own perceptions, views, beliefs, and actions are causative in the creation and maintenance of “the real world” contemporary philosophical inquiry is reunited with the ancient traditions of humankind. The circle of knowledge is complete in our lifetimes and the potential of realizing the true nature of our existence – existence itself – is within our grasp. What is necessary is to learn how to reframe the awareness we have on a daily basis regarding what we are seeing, feeling, and thinking. And this new frame of reference, once in place, reveals a world in which we are free to feel, think, act, and be in the moment and at one with each other and the rest of the universe.
In order to learn techniques for reframing our awareness, we will examine how the old frames of reference keep us enslaved and how the new frame of reference sets us free:
The Role of Projection
To understand the ways in which we create the reality which, to our “normal” and erroneous perception, seems “out there” and separate from ourselves, the first procedure we need to examine is the mechanism of projection and how it operates to create the initial division between inside and outside, which serves to alienate us from our inner selves and the world of our experience.
To be continued…
Image: “I See the World Anew,” by Tullio DeSantis, digital image, 2010.