The Nature of Reality

According to Buddhist Teaching, the Universe is Mind-created. The universe is in a deep sense a projection of collective consciousness. So when we learn about how the world and other people work, we are also learning about ourselves. You can’t separate inner and outer, self and other. We are incredibly connected to everything and everyone around us. But I would say that, wouldn’t I, with Neptune fast approaching a conjunction with my natal Sun?

Because of this connection between inner and outer, it means that when we think of reality in a particular way, reality has a way of becoming that. And then we think reality was that way all along and we just discovered it. Like if you decide that the Universe works rationally according to certain physical laws that can be discovered by a detached observer, and particularly if loads of you decide to think like this, then Reality actually obliges, and you have a scientific universe which sort of holds together, up to a point.

And I think it’s the same with astrology, and it’s why all the different forms of astrology work, even though they can be contradictory, like western astrology being 23 degrees ahead of Vedic astrology.

All these ways of looking at the Universe are real, they do actually describe what is ‘out there’ (and ‘in here’); but they are also ephemeral products of consciousness, they are like consciousness putting on a new dress and looking at itself in the mirror. So they are not absolute.

On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays the fact that all these different astrologies work makes me suspect that we’re making it all up, that I could get any set of symbols to describe any situation if I tried hard enough. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and most weekends it makes me realise just how strange and subtle Reality is.

And perhaps the biggest reason Reality is so hard to grasp is that we can’t help but divide our experience into inner and outer, self and other. So the whole basis of a ‘me’ trying to describe ‘other’ is false in the first place. So any philosophy, any science, any astrology is going to run into limitations which, if you are honest about them, will point you to this more subtle unitary reality.

This is where religion often goes wrong, because it’s practitioners can’t handle the uncertainty involved, they need solid ‘Truth’ to base their lives on. I say ‘goes wrong’, but actually people often need this level of truth to cope psychologically. I think there can be a natural process whereby eventually, perhaps after decades, they start to feel limited by it.

At times, like under a Neptune transit, the divide between inner and outer, the illusion of yourself as a centre of experience, fades a bit. And then you don’t have to bother any more about trying to work out the nature of Reality, because you are experiencing it.