Existing is merely a form of being though we tend to believe that we exist based on our thoughts, senses and that which we remember.

A painting of a flower

The hindrance of belief

One of the greatest misconceptions we are fooled into believing is that objects and specific arrangements alike have substantial meaning. It is easy to imagine the concept of an empty painting, but a painting of a flower becomes a concept to which a subject belongs. The subject is the flower and cannot — unlike the painting – exist without the other.

To us, the painting is real but the flower is not. The flower is not real because it has no existence outside of the painting, hence only the painting is real. The flower becomes — in our thoughts — a conceptualised focus on one aspect of the painting. We are seeing a painting of a flower, a flower with which we are familiar and have accordingly assigned a scent, sound, touch, taste and sight that we depend on during our interpretation as to whether or not we deem the flower to exist.

There is no difference between the flower in the painting and the flower in the garden for both exist in sight and that much is true. What we then interpret as our experience through our senses ultimately determines if we believe something to be real or not.

If the flower now existed on a screen and you were given a glove that allowed a lifelike touching sensation of the flower, would the flower be more real than the one in the painting? What if you could see nothing but the sight of a flower, feeling only the petals and the stem. What if you could smell an aromatic bouquet and hear the wind sweep through the meadow brushing through the pores of your skin?

How we perceive the world through our senses and the beliefs we hold in our thoughts are indistinguishable in that one may not exist without the other. We give meaning to the infinite concepts our senses experience based on previous beliefs we — ourselves — believe to be true. Is this not the wonder of existing in a dream? If you dream that you are a farmer named Joe, with the memories of your past experiences that hold the belief that you are a farmer named Joe, it follows to say that you are not a farmer named Joe, but rather a consciousness that is observing the illusion of Joe’s imagined existence.

Your thoughts, beliefs and that which you experience are the mechanisms that bring about a belief in the non-entity You. To know is to simply think a belief that holds true based on one’s previous experiences. You think you are experiencing the physical world through your body because you see your reflection and believe the thought of a memory that conceptualises the belief that you are you. If belief is simply a thought whose validity has never been contemplated, then the identity with which we identify is no more than a belief whose validity has never been contemplated.

This raises the question as to whether or not existing as the sole imagination of an illusory observation requires a conscious being to bring you into this existence; to imagine you — the you that is reading this — into what is perceived as reality. However, I would argue that the answer requires a greater understanding of not only who we are, but also the many figments of our imaginations we identify as other people. We will revisit this concept of identity after reaching a better understanding of what it means to exist.

The Past, Present and Future

To investigate the concept of Time is a turning point — like no other — when the realisation appears that there has never been a time other than now. There is no past and there is no future, only memory and imagined foresight, both existing as components of thought. One could very well examine the following truth and bring about a simple dependency on which the following relies.

Your thoughts, beliefs and that which we experience are the mechanisms that bring about a belief in the non-entity You.

So now, after understanding what you believe to be you, are you not simply the illusive projection of a belief that is being observed now? One can never exist anytime other than now, nor can they believe the same as another, for if one believes the illusive thoughts of another, they will simply become another, as one becomes in a dream.

For example, right now you are seeing a sight which you believe represents a fraction of your surroundings. The focus point of this image right now is this text, which you are processing with your thoughts, followed by the understanding of a message that has no meaning until it reaches your mind. You are understanding this message, you being the you that you believe to be with the memory that encapsulates the belief that you have had a life as you and that is why you exist now.

You cannot change the past for only now exists the same way you can never change the future, you only exist now. Where you are and what you see and what you hear and all that you experience now is a never ending imagined existence with the illusion of what you understand as a memory that happened in a past that is not real for it will always be now.

The Credibility of Memory

If you, the illusory self you believe to be real is nothing more than a belief that you exist now and only now, as the you you remember, does that not mean that you are eternal and immortal? Can the real you now be Joe the Farmer, who remembers a lifelong existence –that we now know to be only a belief in a memory– as well as his loving wife, Mary, who also remembers a lifelong existence now?

You are no thing, you are thoughtlessness and senselessness. Everything that lives is impermanent yet you continue to exist when both your thoughts and senses cease. If you were to describe who you believed you were, you would explain the you that you remember in your thoughts, however thoughts are not who you are. If you were to describe what you believed you were, you would look to the skies and explain your existence as a being in this vast universe, an existence reinforced by the senses you experience, to which you assign meaning, but you are not your senses or the beliefs you hold.

You do not learn, but rather only access knowledge that you know to exist and thus be true in your memory. The unfortunate realisation is that you may not choose what it is that you believe, otherwise you would be or have anything that you want.

An Opposing View

If one were to completely understand the true nature of the self, attempting to enlighten those alike with limited access to the tools required to make sense of what it is to be awakened, they would institutionalise what is believed to be known by them but rather easily misconstrued by others. Those without the knowledge or context to comprehend what is proclaimed to be the Truth, would naturally regard the teachings as more than just a new lens through which one may choose to see, but instead the formation of a new indoctrination; a new religion.

I have attempted to explain the esoteric sensation that comes with understanding something incomprehensible and in many languages, untranslatable:

The feeling that which may have never had the opportunity to exist as an experience had I not given up completely the conscious understanding that is the humane existence of one’s self. When you understand how depressingly beautiful and misconstrued the universe is to a point where it is mocking the undeniable as a way of concealing the Truth, and experience an indescribable, heartbreaking sensation provoked by the dispiriting fact that no one who does not already know the Truth could possibly fathom the greatness that beholds them.

It is the belief in a thing so pure and only by the privilege of experience that one who truly knows can easily understand why and how others may not. Religion has been known to misinterpret teachings asserted by respective ancient scribes, that held an unfathomable and undeniable belief in what is True.

An example of this misinterpretation can be displayed in the following Bible verse 1 John 1:1

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

With the context that is described in this text, the quote becomes much more understandable in that he who attempted the portrayal of an unimaginable Truth described to others what is already known to them in their interpretation of the physical world through their senses. A sentence that can be misinterpreted as something that is to be learned, rather than to be remembered.

Misinterpretations are plenty in the Bible, Quran and scriptures alike, and thus have taken the form of a specific and literal word based on the construal of certain cultures that are dependant on their instilled beliefs. This has caused centuries of conflict between cultures that are seeking the same Truth but misinterpreting what they have and will persist in preaching to their respective society’s offspring.