Seriously though - I have been thinking about this.
Photo courtesy vindon.co.uk
We are born into the constraints of our reality (our human body) - our reality is delineated by those constraints - and we cannot see outside those constraints.
Understanding what those constraints are however - can illuminate the answer to this question.
Because our equipment (senses - brain) is so seamlessly efficient and works so incredibly well - and importantly we have learned to exist and co-operate with them, we have never had cause or reason to question or to actually explore the nature of our inner environment.
We take it completely for granted and just carry on with our lives - believing that we have a direct interface with a solid, physical reality - out there in front of us, below us, around us.
Now all of this can be confirmed subjectively - by anyone.
Our identity is rooted in awareness.
It exists inside a panorama of thought.
Photo courtesy dailygalaxy
Despite learning that in fact we have a brain - we do not subjectively experience our brain - I have never seen my brain.
We experience within a panorama of understanding presented in the mind - we conceptualise from within this panorama.
Usually, when we are conscious of it - thought implies a conceptual "identity" thinking - inside this panorama - a sort of "avatar" - I suppose - but nevertheless, our entire sense of reality is created by the mind - in conjunction with awareness.
This is the holistic experience - relevent to a human being - much more so than any pretence at objectivity.
The panorama of thought is a representation of the consequences of the brain. For our awareness - in terms of the conclusions and assumptions made by the brain - interpreted into an understanding, this is our entire sense of reality. The world we live in. The brain provides the meaning to the data it receives through the sensory organs - which the mind knows as thought.
We are so convinved that we are dealing with "reality" - out there - but we are actually living in a world of thought - because of course - that is our reality.
That is the nature of our reality.
A world which from birth to death, we are so convinced exists "out there" - does not in fact exist out there as far as our actual awareness is concerned.
It exists inside the mind - it is a panorama of thought - incorporating everything that we know or have known.
Our entire existence has been unfolding for us at this point of interface between awareness and thought.
However - because the integration is so seamless - and because it is the only reality we have ever known - it is our normality - we totally accept it - no questions asked.
It is the brain and the ear which transform the consequences of air pressure into sound for our awareness - which in turn gets transformed into the separate conceptualisation of sound - in our conceptual thoughts.
It is as a consequence of light hitting the eye - inverted by the brain - that we see - that we have a picture in our mind - comprised of understanding relative to our environment.
With a different brain, with different eyes or ears - our world would be different - yet to us, it would be our normality - hence our reality.
Similarly - if the same data were input into our brain, representing any given sensory data, an experience could be totally replicated - yet different from the actuality of the physical environment.
Although this is a model of our reality - we can easily see the similarities between this model and what we know as "virtual reality."
Photo courtesy futureupdate
Why is this pertinent?
It is so pertinent because the presences in our reality are manifold - they are not limited to representations of just our physical environment - but of every single aspect of our lives. Wall to wall.
We perceive objects as thoughts.
We perceive other people as thoughts.
Our feelings, our reactions are all conceptualised into this inner environment - so critically interactions in our environment affect our emotions - our environment contains desire and fear, likes and dislikes.
It exists completely as conceptual thought - as a result, everything will have an opposite - presenting us with choice - with preferences. Our inner environment is entirely created from thought and concepts - so our conceptualised emotions impact on our reality as well.
Our judgements, our thoughts, our emotions - all perceived as conceptual thought will impact directly and immediately on our total paradigm of reality - just as our reality is created immediately and directly (as far as we can perceive) in our thoughts - it is a two way street - but a street that doesn't lead anywhere "out there" - it is all at the interface between awareness and thought.
So the answer to the question as to which effects which - inner or outer.
The truth is that as far as our experience goes (which is our reality as human beings) - there is no outer.
It is only a perception - a perception that exists in thought alone - and an emotional perception that is changed by thought alone.
We are aware that data is streaming through our sensory organs - but we construe that data as the concepts and "reality" presented by the mind - and that is the world we live in.
The concepts in turn - lead us to believe in duality, in opposites - there is no duality in the data itself.
That is the nature of our reality - our life is awareness - our identity is awareness - and that is how we interface with our environment, by bringing the environment inside and letting us re-create it according to choice.
Photo courtesy kreations.net
It is only our conceptualisation itself that creates the divisions inner and outer - therefore using them as terms of reference is misleading.
Nobody who doesn't understand this nature of reality can have a conscious choice to change their inner environment, although the same rules operate - when they think they are happy, their world temporarily changes - as their reality is fixed for them by accepting the environment and conditions as real - which, therefore they are. Real is only permanent if no change is possible. This acceptance over-rides any conscious contributions they may from time to time just wish for themselves. So you can see - to a great extent our "reality" is formed and transfixed by our environment - but it exists only as our inner awareness of it inside our world of thought.
What is transformed is the perception of reality - as an inner environment existing entirely in conceptual thought.
As such, and very really, our perception represents the totality of our reality.
This is not the same as being able to manipulate "matter" - but that our world is only our conceptual interpretation and understanding of it - and it does not exist anywhere else - as far as we are concerned.
We cannot take a short cut to our environment which circumnavigates the mind and the sense organs.
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