Experience defines Reality by Jason Swaffield

It is what we experience that is real. It is what we experience that determines the nature of how we see reality – what’s possible, or what’s not. That is what determines how we ‘see’ reality. How we see what is possible. How we interpret the events around us, and within us.

When we look at ‘reality’, how foolish is it for anyone to view the world we live in based on the preconceived ideas of what others think! Surely an experience is far more credible than what conventional belief systems tell us. Because, whilst subjective, aren’t experiences still actual? They are not merely stories you find it a book – they happen. And aren’t belief systems often just temporary opinions entrenched by popular culture or popular science? I call most of it dogma or ‘convenient science’. What can be considered fact one day can be recognised as incorrect the next. What is often considered ‘heresy’ can later be hailed as ‘revolutionary’. How easily one can be ridiculed trying to open peoples minds, only to be remembered as extraordinary when they were no longer with us. I would rather we look at what is Real in the Now. Why wait! Surely it’s our experiences that tell us how things work and what is possible. It is our experiences that show us what we are capable of, how to define ourselves and the world we live in.

Talk to anyone who has had an experience, and they can tell you in great detail what it was, what happened and what it means to them. It shapes how they view themselves and the world. But talk to someone who has not had an experience but instead bases their understanding on a belief system and all they can give you is an image. Perhaps it is something they’ve simply grown up with, read or been ‘educated’ about. However, it is only a version of a version. A belief. An adopted opinion. Regurgitated information based on acceptability or cultural, social or peer group pressure.

Perhaps its time we stop thinking so much, and start becoming aware.

If we define our reality by our experiences and how we relate to them, we open up so many channels of discovery. New ways of understanding. New levels of awareness, both about ourselves and about the nature of our lives. So surely .. experience determines ‘reality’.

There are literally millions of experiences documented and shared over the decades past that go unexplained. Why? Just because conventional ‘knowledge’ or ‘science’ can’t answer them? That’s ridiculous. And this being so, doesn’t it say more about the lack of credibility of the ‘knowledge base of science’? Why should ‘convention’ bring into question the validity of unexplained experiences when so many people have them? Especially when they show us that reality, time and memory is not what we are taught to believe it is.

Perhaps if we took all the people over all the years who have had experiences that cannot be explained by mainstream knowledge .. and put them all together. We might find there are so many they might be the majority after all! Experience should have the casting vote over the so-called ‘definition of reality’ we are told is factual. Because what is conventional fact when it comes to the unexplained? It is irrelevant – that’s what it is. Conventional facts are simply the rules of resistance to stop further investigation. Fences to stop you wandering into the truth.

Let’s take a simple example. If I have an experience where, say, I lose time. I can’t explain it, and it cannot be rationalised away despite many valiant efforts to do so. My experience showed me time is not constant or fixed. It showed me time is fluid. It showed me time is subjective, and my consciousness played a major part in it. Perhaps there were other energy influences, forces or anomalies involved I could not see or measure? It tells me many things that I both do and don’t know. And both are important. And so it is the experience that tells me there is an understanding of reality that allows me to see what time is .. or more importantly what time isn’t. Now I have an appreciation and an openness that my experience showed me more about the nature and illusion of my reality than I ever realised.

If I simply read a notion of time in a physics book that tells me time is a linear measurement interwoven with forces such as ‘gravity’ and the photonic energy of light .. what then? This version of reality, created by somebody’s meticulous “rubber ruler” calculations and concepts doesn’t even come close to explaining my simple experience. So how can I apply it to what I just experienced? I cannot. Because conventional thinking is really good at telling us what is not possible and what cannot happen, and what I experienced cannot and does not happen .. but it just did. So who is mistaken? Certainly not the person who had the experience.

No matter how credible it appears in a book, when it comes to the true nature of reality what if what is written does not explain a simple experience of someone else’s reality? Then it is incomplete. And if it is incomplete, should it be the guide as to what determines reality? No.

So what determines reality? We do. The person who had the experience about time going fast or slow, backwards or forwards. The person who knows what they saw when no-one else believes them. The person who knows what they feel, even though they cannot explain it. The person who has memories they cannot explain that don’t fit into who they believe they are. The person who keeps an open mind .. that truth is an ever changing movement of awareness.

If you have had an experience, YOU are the person who has a greater hold on what is real than any person who never had the experience at all.

Remember that. Do not doubt yourself, ever.