Consensus Reality
• What is consensus reality?
• It's a group's shared reality, a
social construction of reality.
• It's also your culture's agglomerated fear
based relative reality.
• Perception is reality, which means ...
•
... Go easy on your trust in your culture's relative reality!
• There's
another, better reality you can choose: Absolute reality.
Consensus Reality
- Is It Good for You?
In a word: No.
That, of course, is an unnuanced answer, and not entirely true, as we shall see, but it is more true than not.
If you are interested in personal development, spiritual growth, happiness, inner peace, love, wonder and freedom, odds are that you will want to distance yourself quite a bit from the common world view of your culture.
That's a pretty tall claim, so let's look into it.
Consensus Reality
- a Social Construction of
Reality
We humans each have our own personal, relative
reality - this is a function of
ego psychology, which means that at
the most basic level our personal reality is a pretty lonely and
scary place. The reason being that the ego is a fear based defense
mechanism with a deeply rooted belief in separation (instead of
wholeness).(You can read more about personal, relative reality in the self improvement articles What Is Reality? Total Reality Revealed and Perception Is Reality: Creating Your Own Relative Reality and Personal, Relative Reality Revealed - a 'What Is Reality?' Answer).
(And you can read more about the very pleasant alternative in the self improvement article Absolute Reality Revealed (Non Duality): Just STOP Creating Your Own Reality).
However, we humans are also social herd animals, so we group together and try to establish a common base line of reality: the so-called consensus reality.
Consensus reality is the reality that we - well, most of us - can agree on is real. Sort of, kind of. Because this reality does NOT really span different cultures. Each culture (and even: each subculture within a society) has its own consensus reality, its own social construction of reality.
For example, voodoo is considered a reality in some parts of the world, while other parts of the world consider it hogwash, and yet other parts have no opinion on voodoo because they haven't even heard of it.
Piling Personal Realities Together
Consensus reality is a funny thing. As is apparent from the words 'social construction of reality', it is far from set in stone. In fact, it isn't really anything much in and of itself.
Consensus reality is simply an aggregation of personal, relative realities; a construct that only exists because people within a culture or subculture (unconsciously) decide that it should. (And they unconsciously work HARD to make it so).
Since consensus reality is a construct, it is quite malleable.
A couple of examples: At one time, not that long ago, the consensus reality in the West was that a) the Earth was the centre of the universe, b) the sun revolved around the Earth and c) the Earth was flat as a pancake. Anyone who dared claim something different (e.g. Copernicus) put themselves in harm's way.
How the Social Construction of Reality Takes Place
Consensus reality is created in a sort of unconscious large scale negotiation. Thus, it is nothing but an agreement. And an unconscious agreement at that.Also, consensus reality can be manipulated. People and organizations in power have done that for centuries. Through manipulation of the media and the so-called 'news' many modern day organizations and individuals are doing their level best to influence the social construction of reality - and often succeeding to an astonishing degree.
That's what the Catholic Church was doing to Copernicus - and to anyone else who dared question their near-monopoly on creation of consensus reality in the Western world. That, in fact, was the raison d'etre for the Spanish Inquisition.
And, to top it off, consensus reality is pretty much defined by the lowest common denominator!
So if the general level of consciousness in the culture is relatively low, guess what? That's right: the consensus reality will most likely be characterized by the lowest common level of consciousness.
This is why, if you are interested in spiritual growth, personal development and self improvement, you will not want to build too much of your life based on consensus reality!
Since Consensus Reality Is a Social Construction of
Reality - BE SCEPTICAL OF IT
What? Am I saying that you
should remain sceptical of what the majority of people in your
culture believe - that which your culture defines as 'real'?You bet! That is exactly what I am saying.
First and foremost I am saying that it is a great idea to be open to all things and all possibilities, including things which your culture does not presently accept as 'real' or 'important'.
If some folks had not decided that perhaps the Earth was not flat after all, but round, and that perhaps the Sun does NOT revolve around Earth, and perhaps the Earth is NOT the centre of the universe, things today would look very different indeed.
The fact that it is very easy to get sucked into a shared reality does not mean that it is a good idea. The most likely thing that will happen is that your level of consciousness will be lowered to the lowest common denominator - and defined by those in power.
The Alternatives
Either you retreat further into a reality of your own making (a personal, relative reality), or you start letting go of both your own relative, personal reality and the consensus reality.
Retreating further into your own relative, personal reality (your ego ) is a terribly lonely and fear-filled solution.
Letting go of both your relative, personal reality and consensus reality, on the other hand, is the way Home to absolute reality which is characterized by inner peace, love, freedom, wonder and happiness.
If you are interested in this you might check out Let Go Let God - the Let Go Method by Soren Lauritzen and my ebook for download: Finding Inner Peace by Letting Go. In fact you can also benefit from reading my other ebook How to Be Yourself and Find Authentic Happiness.
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