The Riches of Realization
Joan Miró, in his studio.
What is a realization? It is what happens when you come into contact with reality, when your mind, body, spirit, all of you, touches the Real. When this happens, usually a thought is generated and you call it a realization, an item, a thing to be had, but this is a mistake, an easy one to make because of how much weight our species and culture have given to the brain and its propositions (ideas). A realization is much more. When you have one, reality itself becomes brighter, more apparent, seeing, a bit easier, thoughts more clear, because you have touched the real which means “actually existing or present.” Ideas, precious as they may be, are not actually real or present. Try and touch one. Try and even just hold one thought for a solid minute. My bet is the thought will change, perhaps it will vanish, perhaps it will change into another thought or a series of thoughts, perhaps a thought about your cat will end up in a thought about whether you left dishes in the sink, thoughts are funny things, slippery, at best.
The word “real” has been traced by some to the Vedic word “ram,” which means “resources” or “riches.” Perhaps a realization is full of riches, it is more than the corresponding thought, it is something that you can now see, can now experience, in your contact with reality, it is present to you. It is a gift from reality, this, your realization, this “-tion”, a suffix of an “action of reality” in which you take part, your participation breeds contact, and your contact, knowingness of the real and its vast riches and resources. And when it occurs, everything changes, because reality enters you as you enter it and then you can see with it, through it, in the moment. It is much more than an idea, it is a whole-being experience usually coupled with a sensation, sometimes a feeling of release, or surprise, or wonder, but it always changes you, and you are never the same again.
At the heart of this human experience lies ourselves, embedded in this environment, this reality we all share. We receive riches when we come into contact with it. To do so, often requires some doing on our part though. We have gotten so used to living in an isolated fashion where we see us, ourselves, our “I” and its thoughts as something separated from reality. But what is this “I”? Isn’t it a story, isn’t a story a string of sentences, isn’t a sentence a string of words, and isn’t a word a thought frozen in time? But, are you just thoughts? Is there not a body, sensations, feelings, emotions? And aren’t these more than thoughts. What a funny thing we are.
No one is to be blamed for this sense of isolation, it is just how things developed through our evolution and adaptations followed by a lot of historical accidents coupled with our tendency to form beliefs around those adaptations and their uses for us due to the power story has given us.
As humans we have this magic power of culture and civilization, that has allowed us the great gift of carrying on the things we have learned without having to start over at the beginning of each human life. We don’t have to learn for the first time what fire is, or what plants are safe or not safe to eat, we don’t have to discover language from sound, and these among countless others are products of the amazing legacy of our human culture and human civilization. To make this whole thing happen, this amazing adaptation of language and its gift of culture, we tell stories to one another about reality, but we often get lost in the story and make the mistake of thinking ourselves to be a story when we—as we have just discovered—are something much richer.
However, just as we can learn about reality from these stories we tell each other, we also can bake errors into our culture and our civilization. Sometimes they may be errors from the outset, sometimes they may just be useful adaptations that have become no longer useful for us, and we should be willing to let them go. The story should always be up for revision because we change and the world changes, moment to moment to moment. Yet a story does not, unless we change it.
But, what is important is not to burden ourselves with the history of these stories, but to learn, to inquire, to be willing to see them for what they are, and whether they are serving us, personally and culturally. To do this, we have to be willing to step out, make contact with reality, receive feedback from it, and see what it has to tell us, to find its riches, and share them with one another.
We exist as a human species because we adapt with reality as it changes. We find new ways to fit ourselves to our environment which changes every day, through our influence upon it, and its influence upon us. We shape it, it shapes us. Our success depends on how well we shape ourselves to it. This requires a couple of things, namely: you and others like you.
Let me explain. The beautiful thing about humans is our diversity. Our variations. As you grow up, you, in your singular contact with reality we call your life, have acquired innumerable experiences that are yours alone. Those experiences and attendant realizations you have acquired throughout the course of your life, have shaped you, and in shaping you, they have shaped how you feel, how you see, how you speak, how you move through the world. You have a singular and unique perspective on the reality we all share. You are filled with riches. As you look upon this world, you see it in a way no other person does, you notice something about it that no one else does.
And when you learn to share it, when you can put your jewel into the world, we are all richer for it. Why? Well, the only way we can get a good angle on reality is through different perspectives as reality is complex, so complex in fact that is beyond our limited capacities to fully understand it. Add to that, that it is always changing and you can see the difficulty and the need for as many perspectives as possible.
As reality and our environment changes, chances are you have had experiences in your life that make you more capable of seeing a certain change. It is salient, i.e., sticks out, to only certain people, people like you. To others, like me, it may not be noticeable at all.
I imagine in certain tribes in the past someone had a really good sense of smell and knew where an animal was by scent alone, perhaps someone else had a great sense of vision and could see tracks no one else could see, yet another had an ability to silently communicate with others through their expressions, gestures and body language, and yet another may have had a great sense of taste. Each of these people notice things in a different way, certain qualities of reality and experiences stick out, while others may not. Yet, their perspectives, combined together, made a successful hunt and a delicious meal. In fact, I don’t need to imagine this, because we are standing here today and without it, we would not be.
But, if we don’t share our perspectives with one another, we limit what we can see, the more we limit what we can see, the less successful we become at navigating reality, the less successful we become at navigating reality, the more narrow our perspectives become, the more narrow our perspectives become, the less adaptable we are, the less adaptable we are, the further we stray from reality as it changes, and the further we stray, the less likely we are to succeed, both as individuals and as a human species.
But, this is only part of the story. Learning to share our perspectives with one another requires more than just learning to speak to it. It requires openness, listening, a willingness to take in the perspectives of others. It also requires an openness and willingness to listen to and notice reality as it is.
This willingness requires something of us. It requires us to hold our stories, our histories, our beliefs, our ideas, our identities, our nationalities, our creeds, even our lived experiences and their impact upon us, lightly. Not to dispose of them, but to hold them, not as certainties, unmoving and unchanging, but as possibilities, to be shared and to be changed, to put our stories into motion, just as our lives and reality itself are in motion. We cannot hide within ourselves and behind our stories. For, if we hide behind them, we cannot see anything but them, and any new noticing or perspective that we may come across or that may be shared with us, will become impossible for us to perceive. So, we must learn to listen, without preconceptions, and to explore with others their perceptions, noticings, thoughts, experiences, and be willing to see with their eyes, hearts, and minds. For only if we begin to do this, do we have any chance of realizing our humanity, which has been, and always will be, shared.
So, how, in a culture that has made “I” the be-all-end-all can we possibly begin to do this? How do we learn to better speak, see, feel, notice, and listen? How do we discover the jewels we each have inside?
This is the question the process of philosophical counseling asks and seeks to answer. To do so, it looks to the wisdom traditions of the ancient past and the here-and-now, it looks to the practices of those traditions, and it looks to the developments of our sciences and philosophies, with continually fresh and open eyes to search for ways of doing this. The great news is, there are abundant riches and abundant approaches. At the heart of it, is the present moment and a dialogue between two humans, or perhaps more. However, there are also contemplative practices, mindfulness practices, creative and imaginal practices, movement practices, derived from the vast riches of our human legacy that have been bestowed upon us, that were developed as others have strived to realize who they are, what they are, in this unfolding relationship with reality and each other.
A philosophical counselor will have experience and training in some of these traditions and has tools and methods to share, to help their clients realize the jewels, the riches that lie within them, within each and every human being. The goal of the process, if there is one, is to help you bring your self to your self, to assist you to see your jewel, all of its unique facets, and to see it shine. For when it shines, the world is a bit brighter, and the brighter it is, the easier it is for all of us to see.