The Free Radical

(Author narration with musical accompaniment)

Seven billion truths knocking about, and most tacitly claiming to be the real one… or at least a superior one– I’m sick of it! Hey, all you science types who love to enforce your relative truths upon others, it’s time to upgrade your operating systems. Jump ahead a hundred years and join the rest of us who actually espouse a modern scientific viewpoint!

‘The truth’ does not exist! Or to be more precise, ‘the truth’ presents differently to every observer/participant, hence the term ‘relative truth.’ It was Einstein who demonstrated this about a hundred years ago with a famous thought experiment which has become a staple in physics textbooks ever since. The experiment is called Relativity of Simultaneity. The undeniable and universally agreed-upon conclusion of this thought experiment is that the sequence of events for any occurrence is dependent upon and unique to the relative motion of individual observers. In simplest terms, ‘the truth’ is relative to the circumstances of one’s observation; there is no singular objective truth to be found… anywhere… so stop looking… and stop insisting that your red herring stinks any less than my red herring!

(For a full– but brief– description of the Relativity of Simultaneity thought experiment, you may wish to consult my previous essay Once (More) and for All (Time). That essay deals extensively with the quantum mechanical implications for ‘objectivity’ and consciousness.)

Ego is the aspect of consciousness we utilize to operate within the realm of relative truth. Within that realm of human experience, ego is perfectly necessary. Ego’s chronic tendency, however, is to overstep or overstate its own significance, and to misapply its discoveries (relative truths) upon All That Is. The irony of this oft-repeated ‘mistake’ is that whatever relative truth is being promulgated is exactly correct and true for the ego espousing it in that moment… but only for that ego’s unique perspective in that moment. It can’t necessarily be applied to anyone else, or their unique circumstance.

What ego has such difficulty understanding is that we don’t live in a universe of events of which we are the perceivers. Instead, we live in universes of experiences in which we participate. Experiences are the basic building blocks of reality, not the events associated with matter and energy interacting in time and space. Those ‘events’ only exist as unique and individual experiences. No experiencer = no event. The only ‘place’ in which any events occur– ever– is in mind/perception. They don’t occur ‘out there’ because, quite simply, there is no ‘out there.’

Objective reality is an abstraction, or an illusion, if you prefer. In many, many instances, in the course of regular life, it is a very useful abstraction, and quite regularly we should make full use of it. An obvious example of this is forensics. As long as we engage a crime-and-punishment model, forensic science is indispensable. The ‘objective’ reality it appears to investigate, however, is merely a useful abstraction. The only ‘place’ the crime exists is in the experiences of those involved. We can study the evidence, the artifacts, of the experiences in question… and they will suggest to us a story, and the only ‘place’ that story will exist is in the minds of all those who have come to know of the crime… and each person will have a slightly different interpretation of the story suggested.

What we so casually perceive as this ‘objective’ reality is a consensus. We agree (subconsciously) on certain parameters of shared experience in order to give consistent context for our experiential explorations… together… but each one’s experience is unique. This is the realm of relative truths– our current experience here.

There is no end to relative truths, and there is no linear depiction that can represent them all in any meaningful way. Science embraces its role when it actively shapes the consensus of relative truths we– collectively as a world– accept, according to the stories the evidence suggests.

I hope you will agree that there cannot be a linear depiction of ‘falling in love’ that might ever be equivalent to the actual experience of falling in love. Only the actual experience can live up to the actual experience, and it’s not linear, rational or logical; and it can’t be faked. Only experiences are real, and we create virtual worlds of text and context, man and soul, to further our explorations, understandings. But the worlds are not real– they’re not out there; all the worlds are abstractions of our minds.

Events occur only in consciousness, and nowhere else; all else is pretense.

We can use the abstraction to deepen our understanding, or, if we’re forgetful, we can fall into pretense, and the pretense can be used to befuddle our understanding. If we place too much of our attention on the world, we’re pouring energy into an abstraction. Instead, we should place our attention directly on our experience of the abstraction, for that, and that alone, is real… and amendable. We can change our experience, always, as a matter of choice. But we cannot change the world directly… only how we experience it.

The world (the consensus) responds to the growth in/of our experience. Experience here is gathering relative truths, or belief systems– if you will. But once a significant portion of the world’s populace begins to see through the ultimate futility of amassing relative truths, the consensus necessarily breaks down. The exploration of that type of experience comes to a natural close. The Big Shift is the new consensus we will reach: what sort of New Earth will we create? But before we can get there, there’s the little shift first. We have to stop giving precedence to the world itself over our sacred experience of the world. Less focus on the abstraction… more energy vitalizing the experience– the actual scientific reality.

So go ahead and slog it out over these relative truths about the world, our consensus. And when you’re done arguing, just ask yourself quite simply “Is that really the experience I want?” And that’s it, you’ve made the little shift. You now are ready to allow your experience to be the vehicle for Truth to come into Being, not the gathered truths from amongst the shared abstraction, the world, from which you’d stitched the quilt of ego.

Your experience lies in the seventh direction: inward. Your heart is your journey’s guide through experience. (The mind navigates abstractions– outwardly.)

Your heart desires love; it knows the experience, and promises to deliver it… to the extent that you will venture in.

And all I’ve given you here is one more linear depiction, another relative truth, I know. But that’s the difference– I know! I promise not to tackle you and try to cram my latest relative truth down your throat; I know that you can only come to it… in your own time, in your own way, once you’re honestly done with the realm of relative truths. This promises to be the last one.

So there’s not one that stands for them all, but there is One Truth which transcends them all… and It’s always available, no matter where you are.