You Don’t See Reality. You See Your Beliefs About It.
The Reality Delusion
You’re not seeing reality; you’re hallucinating it.
Your “objective reality” is just a projection, a mental movie starring your beliefs. This isn’t philosophy – it’s the cosmic joke you’ve been living.
That tree, that chair, your annoying neighbor – you think you’re perceiving facts. But you’re watching shadows on your mental cave wall. Your perception isn’t a window; it’s a funhouse mirror warped by everything you’ve been taught.
The truth isn’t out there waiting to be discovered…
…it’s buried under the rubble of your certainties.
The Confirmation Bias Trap
Your beliefs aren’t ideas; they’re prison bars you mistook for support beams.
Every belief acts like a filter, straining reality until it matches what you already think. You believe people are selfish? You’ll spot every instance while remaining blind to kindness. You believe the world is abundant? You’ll trip over opportunities others miss.
It’s a cosmic joke – you think you’re gathering evidence, building a case for your worldview. But you’re cherry-picking reality, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy loop so perfect it would make a snake eating its tail look inefficient. Your beliefs don’t describe your world; they create it, brick by delusional brick. And you don’t even realize you’re the architect.
The evidence doesn’t shape your beliefs; your beliefs manufacture the evidence…
…and you call this “seeing clearly.”
The Meaning-Making Machine
Events have no inherent meaning; you’re the meaning factory.
That raw data of existence – job loss, compliments, rejection – it’s just stuff happening. But your belief system slaps labels on everything: “This means I’m a failure,” “This means I’m worthy.”
You’re connecting random dots and insisting you’ve drawn a masterpiece. The job loss that devastated you might be liberation to someone else. The compliment that made your day might be manipulation to another. Your beliefs don’t just filter reality; they manufacture meaning where none exists. They weave random events into a personal narrative so compelling you forget you wrote the script.
Your life doesn’t happen to you; it happens through the lens of your beliefs…
…and that lens is smudged beyond recognition.
The Possibility Prison
Your beliefs don’t just interpret your world; they determine its boundaries.
If you believe you can’t learn that skill, you won’t try. If you try and fail once, you’ll quit, proving yourself right. The cosmic prank is that your beliefs about what’s possible create invisible electric fences in your mind.
It’s like living in a mansion but only using one room because you believe all other doors are locked. You never check. Your beliefs about what’s possible aren’t observations of reality; they’re limitations imposed upon it. The person who believes they can’t sing never opens their mouth. The person who believes they can’t change stays stuck. Not because of reality, but because of the reality filter they’ve installed.
Your perceived limitations aren’t discoveries about the world…
…they’re decisions about what world you’re willing to inhabit.
The Value Illusion
Your values aren’t discoveries about reality; they’re projections onto it.
That expensive car – it’s just metal, rubber, and fuel. But your belief system slaps a value judgment on it instantly. If you believe wealth equals success, you feel admiration. If you believe wealth corrupts, you feel disdain. Same car, different movie in your head.
It’s like walking through a museum where every painting has your face photoshopped into it, yet you’re convinced you’re seeing the originals. Your beliefs about what’s good, bad, important, or trivial color your entire experience. They’re not observations; they’re overlays. The world isn’t inherently meaningful or worthless – it just is. You’re frantically coloring between lines that don’t exist.
Your judgments aren’t properties of the world…
…they’re projections of your belief bubble onto a reality that couldn’t care less.
The Bubble Burster
Freedom isn’t finding better beliefs; it’s seeing through all of them.
Nonduality isn’t about swapping your current delusion for a shinier “Everything is One” model. It’s about recognizing the delusional nature of all beliefs. The real work isn’t finding the right filter; it’s seeing the filtering mechanism itself. Question everything, especially thoughts that feel most certain. Look for contradictions. Notice how beliefs create your emotional weather.
The bubble of beliefs you live in isn’t reality; it’s a simulation you’ve mistaken for the real thing. And the cosmic joke? You’re not trapped in the bubble…
…you are the bubble.
Holy fuck! "I" can see what this article is pointing to now more than previously. What can one say about all this? Whatever is spontaneously said as a response, I guess....I'll go out on a limb here, so to speak, and say what I am going to say here...In light of this article, It's like it's dawning on me that 'we', though there is actually no plural we, are the One and only Reality. And the experiences in our lives as human beings is like a game and a cosmic joke. If you believe that you can't do this or that, learn this or that, can't have this or that, WE are the Reality that is making is so and it manifests in our lives more or less as we believe it to be.
However, this is not to say that the 'ego' based, 'me' or 'I' based beliefs like you see in stuff like "the Secret" always come true. Most of that stuff is just ''ego wanking' and caters to that. Reality is only going to align with Reality, not with what is false and unreal. What is false and unreal? That which is subject to change, which can come and go, which depends on something else to exist or be within the concept of time. Again, if you wanna know what's real, you gotta see though what's false and unreal. Of course, what is real is indescribable and beyond the mind and any of its concepts. Our shared Being-ness and the "I Am" is a door or gateway to it.
There is a lot of seeming paradox is all this. To sum this up, because of 'us' being 'That' which we truly are, we are creating and manifesting our life experiences...at least some or many of them. The variable factors in all this are innumerable....
In the book 'I Am That' the Indian sage Nisargadatta Maharaj was talking with an American or English woman about stuff. She says to him (something to the effect of), "I am not yet the immutable, unchanging fullness of reality..." Maharaj says to her in response something like, "Well, if that is what you currently believe, then you should continue with your sadhanas (spiritual practices). It all depends on what you take yourself to be".
"recognizing the delusional nature of all beliefs." Especially the delusion I partake of that I have no delusions- Wait! This belief too.