How we experience the world is directly related to where we’re experiencing it from. This is true of both our perceptual vantage point – say a balcony in Manhattan or a pond in Stanley Park – and our stage of development. A toddler does not experience the world the same way as a teen does nor a teen as an adult.
What is real or true for us changes as our relationship with ourselves shifts.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had 2 phrases from the Vedas he used to illustrate this point.
Knowledge is Structured in Consciousness
Knowledge is different in different States of Consciousness
For example, our reality in dream state is very different from sleep or waking. Similarly, our reality in Self Realization is quite different from ego-identification or in Unity and so forth.
We can illustrate this with a general example of how we experience space.
When we’re young, space is a mere abstraction. What we come to see as real is what we can see and touch. While many adults gain a sense of objects existing in space, they continue to see the outer world as the reality.
When perception of subtle values begins to come on-line, we tend to experience this as distinct from our outer world experiences. People thus use terms like “other dimensions” or refer to subtle worlds, distinct from the physical.
As this matures we may come to see things in layers – the physical, astral, causal, etc. Often there is the sense of higher levels above where we normally “reside”. We may describe it like floors of a building or layers of creation.
At a certain point, we may recognize the layers as actually all existing in the same space. The subtle is present within everything we experience with the physical senses. It’s intertwined.
As we settle into higher stages of development that are more inclusive, we can come to see them as nested. In other words, everything is both present in the same space and nested, one within the other like a Russian doll. More like concentric circles than a layer cake. I’ve written prior of how space and time are nested this way.
And then we can realize that these layers or rings are also artificial boundaries in one wholeness. From the perspective of the cosmic body, our creation arises with the 3rd chakra, our universe like a gonad in the second. These boundaries can fall away too. This better unifies the cosmic body.
Davidya