Reality

There is no physical reality that exists on its own, somehow separated from another world underneath or above it. The exclusively physical, materialist perspective is a partial perspective created by eliminating the other perspectives. In reality, it is one world. If you see the creation in its totality, it is a unity. If you see only its surface, you see the world of objects. So, eliminating the subtle perceptions eliminates the oneness, the unity that is an intrinsic aspect of the nature of all that exists. We are seeing, then, in some detail, what is meant when spiritual teachings say that we are prisoners of our senses… To know that the physical perspective is only partial is not to devalue the physical, but to allow the possibility that there are other perspectives. We actually need to include other perspectives or dimensions to enable our physical senses to function clearly. (Diamond Heart Book 4, pg 310)

Objective Reality

In objective reality there is no such thing as the physical world that we know. If we experience our body without the filter of ordinary knowledge, we will not experience a physical body; we will experience a fluid patterning of luminosity. Our experience is so conditioned and determined, that not only do we believe we have and are a body, we believe in something more basic that underlies this belief: that the body is that body as we take it to be. For most people this is absolutely true: the body is physical matter that is born and hurts and dies. From that kind of view, how can we possibly think of it as a fluid patterning of luminosity? This is just an example, maybe a little extreme, to tell us how far the patterning of ordinary knowledge goes. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, pg 70)

Reality and discrimination

True reality is a presence that has self-pervasive awareness that possesses at the same time a discriminating knowingness. This fact, which is important for inquiry, can be recognized in your own personal experience. Your normal experience is of being a person with awareness and the capacity to discriminate. But this discrimination is not a result of the mind’s labels; the labeling comes later. The inherent discrimination happens as a part of the awareness. You might discriminate the pattern of a tree outside your window and call it a tree, but your ability to discern the pattern of the tree is already there before you call it a tree. It is the same with the capacity to discriminate your inner impressions, such as various emotions, sensations and thoughts. (Spacecruiser Inquiry, P 39)

Reality and experience

Reality is one. The reality of who we are is the reality of everyone else, of all beings, all that exists. There are no people in reality, there is just reality. The fundamental reality is a complete, unconditional state of oneness, which is a completely nonconceptual way of perceiving and being. If we do not believe anything, if we become completely separate from the mind which is the product of the past, if we become truly alone, then we see how reality is. Then you do not experience yourself as the person who was born to these particular parents. You experience yourself as never being born. You see yourself as undying. You see everything as undying. There is only one reality, and there is no one there to say it is one. (Diamond Heart Book 4, pg 179)

Reality and experiencing another

It is possible to be an emptiness where you can experience someone completely because you become them completely. There is no position which gets in the way of the experience. When you have no point of view, you can look at a flower and know a flower completely, without reaction or judgments. This perspective where there is complete openness to things, without the rigidity of a point of view, is reality. This is the absence of rejection, judgments, suffering and restriction. This openness allows Essence in all its manifestations. (Diamond Heart Book 2, pg 143)