Truth Alone Is Real - Can You Spot What’s Unreal?
Welcome back!
Thad Matson Family at Christmas
I apologize to all who were reading the Christmas series of ideas. I got so swamped at the last moment with all the holiday events that I am only now recovered enough to address the last three topics. If you’re just joining us, you can read the whole series here.
Today’s topic is Truth Alone Is Real. We live in a perceptive environment where we judge all that passes in front of us by whatever we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell. Well, that works for a while. There are two more senses, did you know? Uh huh! There remain reason and understanding.
Reason (hopefully you’ve all arrived at the state of reason by now) changes what passes in front of us. Reason lets us place our educated judgment - perhaps understanding - on what we see, hear, etc. One of the most wonderful things that reason can do is that is can permit us to determine if a thing is Real or if it is Unreal. Real is defined as actual being; true. Unreal is defined as not real; not substantial; having appearance only. Have you noticed how the word “unreal” has become a throw-away phrase in common speaking?
It’s that “having appearance only” that helps you reason your way through something that you see, hear, touch etc. Both real and unreal things have an appearance. Unreal things are not substantial. They have no verity, only an appearance. This means they can disappear if you remove your attention from them.
Your attention (intentional or unintentional) is what keeps things in your experience. If you only want good things, only recognize or think about good things. If something “unreal” passes before you (like an image of your plus sized body in a mirror) you can tell yourself “This isn’t true of me. Perfect proportion is the truth about me.” In time, if you can keep yourself from obsessing about your appearance, it will return to its normal state.
I’m going to be working on that this year.
Happy New Year!
Pat
Tags: appearance, obsessing, truth
