Examining the Nature of Memory as the Basis for Reality
In our endless quest to find the true basis for what we call reality, we seem to overlook what is obvious and can be realized by simply examining what we call reality, which forms the basis for experience. If we move away from forming an idea that’s based on a technological or material model, or what we have been taught to believe and come to accept as true regarding the nature of reality and our part in it, and we focus instead on observing our own mind and inner being, we can conclude that reality is not only a product of our own perception, but also based on memory of multiple levels and kinds, which not only shapes reality, but more importantly, shapes how we experience the reality formed through our own mental projection. To understand this phenomenon, we must start by examining the nature of memory itself and how it’s produced, both objectively through the memory of Nature, and subjectively through memories we create as a record of our own personal experiences.
I’m not going to approach this through conventional models, which in my opinion divert from the basic nature of what we can clearly call mental phenomena, giving names to different parts that make up a whole, without really identifying their true origin and foundation. Everything we perceive, experience and exist as a part of, originates out of memory, and memory itself exists on different levels, scales, and magnitudes. I want to start by pointing out a basic principle that involves what we refer to in esoteric sciences as planes, realms, levels, scales, and worlds. Planes exist in a hierarchical structure that moves between what we call higher and lower levels, each of which contains and is formed out of the same memory, constructed on different scales that move from personal, to worldly, to universal, each level being fully contained within the one above it, and each higher level birthing the one below it. Each level, which are really different aspects of an even greater plane, form the basis for the next to emerge out of it as a natural form of growth and development that form an evolutionary process of self-transcendence.
This idea can also be seen as concentric circles, where the inner circles are contained within the outermost circle as its inner essence and constitution. This principle can also be understood by observing what we call kingdoms of the Earth, which all combine in forming different parts and functions of a greater whole. Out of the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom rises and is sustained; out of the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom rises and is nourished and sustained; out of the animal kingdom, the human kingdom rises and is sustained. While these appear as different kingdoms, they’re all interdependent and together form the kingdom of Nature as a single Ecosystem. Each one of us plays a distinct role of our own making in a societal theme, which plays a role in a worldly theme (greater story), which plays a role in an even greater cosmic theme. Some wonder how each person naturally plays a particular type of role in what amounts to an inconceivable cosmic scheme, because they see themselves and others as capable of functioning independently of the world around them, instead of realizing they were initially shaped by others and the world around them We tend to think the culprits of the world must all get together and plan out their schemes, because otherwise how would they all end up being apart of the same idea, instead of realizing they’re all playing the same role in the same worldly or universal story, and so collaboration isn’t necessary.
We embrace the idea of multiple planes of existence, in which the primary ones have been given the label of heaven, earth, and hades (each plane has 3 levels or aspects), without fully understanding that we, each one of us, exist simultaneously as a fundamental part of all of them. We’re not on a higher plane or lower plane; we exist on all of them at the same time, it’s only our “center of awareness” that creates an illusion of moving between what seems like different planes. We’re not in one or the other but a part of all 3, formed as One, comprised of greater and lesser wholes. In the most basic sense, the part and the whole it perceives itself to be contained within and restricted by, are the same entity on different scales (outer reality and inner self) and magnitudes (all-inclusive and exclusive) of the same existence. While some embrace and proclaim the idea that we are multidimensional beings, which usually means capable of moving into and through different dimensions, where we maintain a perception of ourselves as being a bodily existence that we’re confined to as a means of perceiving ourselves and “moving” from one place to another, this actually means we are every dimension at the same time. At every level, no matter how you look at it, we’re the one creating and sustaining it through our ability to think about it and imagine it as a concept for attaining a certain type of experience.
In terms of our material existence and the reality formed of this dimension, directly associated with the Earth, 2 planes are prevalent and combine to produce our experiences. What we call a higher plane, the plane where our conscious mind resides in a dominate eternal state, known as our Higher Self or what many perceive as God (Christos), which has no form but animates all forms with life, is archetypal in nature and represented by the Sun. The lower plane is birthed as the complementary aspect of our higher mind and is formed out of and formed as a fundamental part of the Earth’s soul and memory, called instinct. There’s a fundamental difference between these 2 realms and aspects of the same mind; the lower mind of the subconscious is non-creative in the sense of forming personal memories which it then uses as the means of shaping ourselves by way of our own mental constructs. It operates in a completely natural and automatic fashion through memory which exists in the atmosphere around us, known as instinct that’s associated to our species and connected to all life on Earth. We don’t create these memories through will and imagination, by thinking about things and making everything mean something while imagining them as an expression of how we feel in relation to what’s happening.
This part of us, which is unconscious in the sense of not being self-aware and perceiving itself as an individual, exists as a part of the group or tribal mind, and is shaped fundamentally by others and its environment. It doesn’t perceive itself as being separate from the environment or the group it’s a part of and therefore doesn’t perceive itself as an individual of its own making. It has no will or ability to create itself, and so there’s no individuality at this level of mind and soul. In the most basic sense, it operates exclusively through preexisting memory, where it’s given a pattern as a process and operation that it simply fulfills, and functions through both instinctual memory and the personal memories created by our higher mind. When we reside primarily in this part of ourselves, we have no will or perceived ability to work outside of what we call fate, a form of predestiny decided and governed by our higher power, over which we have no control or thought of contesting. This is the part of us easily governed by the will of others and the higher mind, which is often referred to as God, where we pray to what seems like an outside power to help us and guide us through life’s storms, which are usually of our own making. In this realm of our mind, we exist as a fundamental part of the Earth’s memory and the collective memory of humanity on Earth.
Our higher mind is the part of us that’s self-aware and fully conscious while centered “within” the reality formed and sustained through the material essence of our subconscious mind. This part of our mind resides primarily on the higher plane that’s parallel to this one, and never fully incarnates into our body, but divides itself into polar aspects, where it only resides partially in the body, while also being what forms and maintains the entire outer reality through which it perceives itself through its own outer reflection. What’s being both absorbed and reflected as a single reality is the memory of itself formed through multiple lifetimes. It’s both the body located at the center of reality, and the outer reality in which the body lives and experiences itself, at the same time. There’s no difference, one is an extension and continuation of the other on different scales. It’s a single entity (androgynous), while creating an illusion of being separate from itself as the means necessary for experiencing itself and coming to know itself as it is through its own outer reflection. This part of our mind and soul only comes into the physical world as a means of knowing itself, and it can only know itself through an experience of itself as an entire world of its own making. This principle is expressed in the allegory of Adam (man as an archetypal androgen) being divided into two parts (male and female), as a means of creating itself in material form.
The higher part of our mind is self-creating or self-assembling in terms of being able to form our own memories as a permanent record of our self-produced experiences. Our experiences are formed by the meaning we give to the events of our life and behavior of others that form the basis for a story we begin telling ourselves about what things mean. Meaning is what forms the basis for experience, and experience is translated into memory as a permanent mental record that serves as an archetypal template for creating more of the same type of experiences. Self-produced memories come as an expression of our character in relation with whatever is happening, and form into thematic patterns that shape our perception of reality and assign a predetermined meaning to everything as a means of forming a consistent experience of life. We act to shape our own reality, not literally, but perceptually, which we then form an experience of as a story we begin telling ourselves, and this self-produced memory, formed by the aspect of the mind that’s also shaping reality itself, serves the same purpose as instinctual memory in regard to our subconscious. It provides the subconscious with a pattern, process, and thematic story-line that it shapes into a corresponding outer reality, providing the basis for creating more of the same type of experiences, based on a general theme. The memories we form of our life act as a virtual command and set of instructions formed as a life theme that the subconscious forms into a perceptual lens for producing as a corresponding reality.
The Nature of Our Personal and Divine Will
Some wonder whether we have a personal will, or if our life is completely determined by a higher will, and we’re simply subject to it without a choice. And of course, when we understand the dual nature of our mind, the answer is both. The dual nature of our mind functions in harmony to produce a single reality, which we reside in as a part of it, while also existing outside of it looking in or watching it from a detached perspective, narrating it as a story we tell about ourselves, about ourselves, and what our own creation means about us. Our life is predetermined as a life cycle based on memory we created and accumulated over many different lifetimes, often referred to as karma, where we live our life in an automated fashion, where it seems like something that’s happening to us by an outside force, based on the memory that forms our character. Our higher will is a form of divine providence or what some perceive as the Will of God, where we have to serve (bear) our karma as a means of redeeming ourselves and restoring balance as a form of true justice. Our life plays out in an automated fashion based on memory, seemingly beyond our ability to change or direct it, unless we “wake up” in the midst of our own dream and realize who we are in terms of being the one actually producing it all.
Once we realize we have a personal will and ability to transform how we perceive life and shape our own experiences, we can begin using our higher, creative mind, which is our willing mind, in a much more productive and intentional manner. We don’t change our reality by working on reality itself, or where we change our situation and living environment, we change it by working with the memory that’s forming and maintaining it as a particular type of experience. By working with the memory we formed of ourselves and our life, we can simultaneously change how we experience ourselves through our own mental projection. Reality itself, formed as a material construct or particular setting, is insignificant in and of itself, and only provides the means for shaping an experience of ourselves. It’s only the experience shaped into a memory that serves to express a particular feeling and develop a character trait, that’s eternal. The material world and our place in it is temporary and fleeting. As soon as we leave our body, the material circumstances and conditions of our life dissolve and gradually fade away, while the memory attained through it lives on in eternity as our soul’s character, essence, and constitution. It remains permanently recorded in the timeless realm of the essence (astral light) that forms all creation.
As you recall and continue to play out memories you created as a record of your experiences, which form a thematic pattern, you’re literally hypnotizing yourself in terms of willfully instructing your subconscious on what to connect with and maintain as the physical basis for attaining more of the same type of memory of yourself. The voice in your head that’s always talking as a means of thinking, is one part of yourself talking to – describing and explaining things in terms of what they mean – to another part of yourself, which takes it in without resisting or examining it, and forms it into a complementary outer world of the same idea and life theme. It does this through a group of synchronized mental filters that filter through all the information available in any situation, vibrating and abstracting only what matches and can be used to form the perception of your thoughts and the archetypal theme of your memories.
We form what we call “core memories” (just like core values and beliefs) as a child when our conscious mind is only beginning to develop, formed primarily out of emotions we were experiencing at the time, while still sensing ourselves as a part of our situation and environment. At this point in our development, we don’t separate ourselves from others or what’s happening, and we imagine that everything going on around us is somehow our fault. The meaning we give things makes them about us somehow. These childhood memories, formed as an emotional illusion, become the foundation of our life-theme which we continue to grow through our thoughts and how we perceive the world around us, where we’re always at the center of our experiences, and as we become adults and gain full use of our conscious mind, the thematic pattern serves to shape how we think about things. In this sense, the lower self takes control and ultimately governs the higher self through unruly emotional states that replace neutral reality with chaotic delusions that control how we think about things, where we make everything about us somehow. No matter what’s going on or what someone else is doing, we take it personally and form an experience of ourselves through how we react. This occurs naturally and without conscious awareness or effort born out of reasoning.
Because we’re not aware of the fact that we’re creating how we think about things and are the one forming our memory of things, we don’t realize we have the ability to change them by gaining control of our own thoughts in a self-aware manner. Our thoughts, which are automated and formed out of habitual patterns that follow a distinct theme, remain the same regardless of our life situation and circumstances. We’re always being who we are no matter what our outer circumstances are. We feel the same, have the same type of thoughts, and form the same relationship with others and the world around us, regardless of its physical appearance or structure. The outer world of reality is always formed as a harmonious correspondence to the inner world of our thoughts and feelings, and vice versa. Both are shaped out of the same archetypal memory matrix, which exists simultaneously as the character and theme of the story we live in as a means of growing and developing ourselves through various trials, challenges, personal crisis, dramas, adventures, new experiences, and opportunities.
All reality is formed out of memory shaped as a personal, worldly, and universal memory, where one is interlaced and contained within the other as a natural offspring. We are both our higher self and lower self, a god and an animal, at the same time. They are polar opposites of the same mind and archetypal entity, which combine to shape the world as a reflection of ourselves, providing us with the means for knowing ourselves through our own experiences of ourselves. Experience is created by combining the inner world of thought and imagination with the outer world that serves as an outer reflection of the inner world, forming what we experience as a coherent reality. We’re not one or the other, we’re both at the same time. We are the creator and what’s being created at the same time through the reality of our own mental projection. We create the world we also exist in as a means of knowing ourselves through our own outer reflection. We have trouble understanding this because we repress and eventually disown parts of ourselves deemed bad, wrong, or warranting rejection from our family unit, and as a result, don’t recognize them when they still play a part in our outer reflection. Same character, idea, and life theme played out on different scales and levels of the same mind, forming the basis for knowing ourselves through a direct experience of ourselves.
Related Articles:
Tapping Into the Cosmic Memory of the Akashic Field
Memory Forms Our Soul’s Constitution and the Basis for Personal Experiences
Soul Memory and the Journey of Self-Creation Through the Space-Time Continuum
Archetypes, Morphic Fields, and Memory – The Holographic, Etheric Blueprint for Creating Reality
What we perceive and all partake in as the objective reality of Nature, is formed through the memory and vibratory frequency of the Earth, which is also an archetype known as Terra or Gaia. The Earth is an archetypal being of a much larger and universal nature. What appears as an objective reality that we all see and share in, also provides the memory of instinct that allows us to function harmoniously within its environment, without having to think, evaluate, problem solve, or make decisions on what to do. Plants and animals know what to do automatically, without having to be taught or given instruction. We share in the Earth’s archetypal nature through our subconscious and physical, mammalian body. Everything on Earth, which is birthed out of the essence of the Earth, is automated as a fundamental part of the same homogeneous being, forming what we call an Ecosystem. This is represented as the “original creation” of this world – of Nature and the Earth’s soul – which was then turned over to us to use as a means for creating, so we would know the joy of creating.
A universal creation serves as a theme that sets the stage for forming a personal creation, as the character that’s birthed within and inherently correlated with that theme (mythology). We always borrow from a universal idea, which is an archetype or ideal prototype for producing endless variations for the same idea, all of which hold true to and follow the same general story-line and use it as the means for a personal creation of the same type and kind. One resides independent of us and beyond our ability to change it, while the other, our personal version of the same thing, lies completely within our control and ability to fashion it as an expression of who we are. The same situation and set of circumstances are used by a number of people to create entirely different experiences that are unique to them. This is because experience is always an experience of ourselves, formed as a relationship with ourselves in everything else.
Life is a Paradox Formed by Complementary Opposites
Life exists, like our dual mind, as a paradox. We’re always working with 2 aspects or parts of our mind, which, though they seem to contradict each other, where one is used to prove the other doesn’t exist, or one seems to constantly go against or become the adversary of the other, they’re actually complementary, where one forms the basis for the other to exist as a joint reality. Our higher mind, which is universal in nature and creates the memory that shapes what we perceive as reality, providing the basis for the subconscious to turn into a personalized version of an otherwise joint reality, forms both the whole and the part which exists within the whole. It shapes reality as a coherent light formation that serves as a vehicle which it then inhabits and uses as a means of being within a world of its own making, and as the means of working within the world as a divine and benevolent force. The problem tends to exist when we believe we’re just a body imprisoned in an estranged world, instead of realizing we are the world in its entirety. Not as a physical creation, as a mental one that shapes the memory used to order and organize the material world as an outer reflection of our archetypal nature.
When we perceive the world as being against us, we pose different parts of ourselves against each other, imagining them as adversaries instead of comrades or allies. The world and others only seem to work against us based on our own perception of them and how we think about them by fitting them into our story about things. We reside in our lower mind where we continue to make everything about us. We see other people’s words and actions as saying something about us, and we internalize and personalize everything, reacting as if it’s real or true about us. Most of our reactions, dislikes, and hatred are formed in response to unknown, repressed, or disowned parts of ourselves, and not knowing who we really are or what we’re about. Once we begin moving into our higher mind, forming a true awareness and sense of ourselves, we no longer look to others and the events going on around us to tell us who we are, and we no longer take things personally and react emotionally to other people’s behavior. We no longer need to change them or prove them wrong somehow, and we remain mentally and emotionally undisturbed by their attitude and presence. We begin realizing in that moment that their mentality and behavior don’t say anything about us, unless we make it about us by how we internalize it, but simply shows us who they are and where they’re at in their own journey. At this point in our development we realize, not as a concept or lofty saying, but as a direct awareness, that “we are in this world, but not of it”. Once we begin identifying with our true divine nature, where we’re awake and aware in ordinary moments, we also become aware that we are responsible for how we experience things, no matter what’s happening. We can’t change reality itself, which is born out of the Earth’s soul and essence, but we can change and determine how we experience reality, no matter what form it takes on. Our memory shapes our identity, and our identity is our archetypal, divine, and eternal nature.
It’s interesting to notice that many people proclaim that the “self” doesn’t exist and is just an illusion that dies with the body, and again, this idea being paradoxical, in the ultimate sense, it’s the only thing that is real and exists. The question is, do we create our sense of self by identifying with our personal existence, which of course is mortal, or do we create it by identifying with our higher mind and evolutionary existence? People tend to think this way when they form a pronounced belief in the material world as being what’s “real”, yet our sense of self, is what we’re always creating as a personal experience of ourselves. Whatever we believe about ourselves is true in the basic sense, because it forms the basis for what we experience as a reality. The paradox comes when we equate “self” and “identity” (“I”) with our personality and physical existence in a single lifetime, rather than our archetypal nature and character which merely inhabits the body as a means of experiencing and coming to know itself through its own creation.
It’s only the memory we form of ourselves (notice how this is always plural) that shapes our inner character and sense of ourselves in relation with aspects of ourselves on both a greater and lesser scale, that’s immortal and eternal. The identity we form of being our body and shaped by our life circumstances is an illusion in the sense that at some point it dies a mortal existence and returns to the dust of the Earth, out of which it was formed, and therefore ceases to exist. It’s only the soul and spirit that continues, and the soul’s constitution is formed out of memory that it creates. Likewise, the reality within which the body and personality lived and had its existence, also dies with the body, and only exists within the higher mind as a memory that’s molded back into the memory of our archetypal matrix. Only the memory attained from this lifetime is immortal and forms the basis for our karma in succeeding lifetimes, where it forms the basis for our continual development through the matrix of our own nature formed as a whole world and coherent reality.
Transpersonal Psychologist, Personal Transformation Mentor, and Spiritual Teacher
