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I'm not going to try and wow you with long drawn out explanations about reality, matter, and the nature of the universe. I'm not going to try and convince you that one theory is more correct than another. I'm not even going to defend Science against Religion or Physics against Mysticism.
In all honesty, it isn't my responsibility to tell you which one is right and which one is wrong. It's not my responsibility to tell you which theories in Quantum Mechanics coincide with commonly held beliefs in Zen Buddhism or Sufism. I'm not even going to tell you what these coincidences might be.

No…these are your responsibilities. When was the last time you paid attention to them?

I'm not trying to criticize you or imply that what you're currently focusing on is the wrong thing. I'm not trying to insult you or even make you feel like less of a success in life. I am doing exactly what others have done for me and what is being done by more and more people everyday. I'm reminding you that there is something you are experiencing.

I know, I know…it's quite obvious that we are always experiencing something. Most people call it “the world” or “life”. But I'm not talking about “we”. I'm talking about “you”. And, contrary to the common belief, “you” are not experiencing the world. You are experiencing yourself.

The most basic foundation of existence is often the most overlooked one. No matter who or what you are, no matter when or where you exist, you are always experiencing what it's like to be yourself. You are experiencing emotions, thoughts, memories, and dreams from within your own mind. You are not experiencing the world, you are experiencing how you interpret the world.

This might seem fairly trivial and unimportant but I'd like to repeat my point one more time. You are NOT experiencing the words on this page, you are experiencing your interpretation of those words.

This is the very core of our experience as a conscious entity. This is what it means to be aware. You've always known it, you just don't pay attention to it very often.

So what does this mean for science and religion? Very little. Both science and religion are ways of looking at the world. Science claims that the world is nothing more than separate parts working together to make the whole, Religion claims that the world is the creation of an all-seeing entity called “God”. I'd like to make this clear…neither of these “beliefs” ever attempt to discover and explain the depths of what awareness means. They do not, and will not, discuss how our interpretation of reality affects the experience of reality.

Why? Simple. It would be impossible to list, explain, and document all of the possible interpretations of all of the possible experiences a human being could have. It is equally impossible to document how those chosen interpretations affect the next experience (and therefore the next interpretation). It is an endless subject with no real answers other than the ones you decide to believe are the real answers.

So why do we try to explain reality when the point, it would seem, is to simply pay attention to what we're doing and learn from our own actions? Because an explanation, whether it be true or not, offers some sort of stability. Explanations offer an easy escape from the human condition we call “questioning”. What are we questioning? Our own affect over the circumstances in our lives.

If it is our interpretation of reality that defines our experience of reality then it is a very small leap in logic to state that we are ultimately responsible for how we feel at any given point. Again, I'd like to reiterate this point.

You are always experiencing your interpretation of reality. Your interpretation is a matter of choice (whether you want to believe that or not). Therefore all of your experiences, good or bad, have been completely dependant on how you choose to look at them. Ultimately, there is no explanation for reality except for one. You are your reality.

Before ending this article I would like to make one additional point. Although explanations, definitions, and theories will never actually capture the “answer to life” there are an endless amount of insights to be found about yourself through reading them. I would encourage you to seek opinions about the world that you're not currently familiar with…not for the sake of explaining the world, but for the sake of seeing yourself.

I realize that there are a lot of different views on the world out there so I would recommend finding books that cover a large variety of them and then doing further research about the topics that interest you from there. I would recommend a book called “The Ultimate Reality”, in 115 chapters it covers everything from Christianity to Quantum Physics, Meditation to Lucid Dreaming. You can find it here

Know Thyself…after all, you've never known anything else.