Unburdening Ourselves from Constructed Reality

A spiritual message channeled by Rev. Jeff Munnis about the constructed realities in the material world, and how to unburden ourselves.

Transcript

One of the most astonishing facts about human beings is that deep within the human being, at that most essential part of the being, there is a knowledge and an intelligence that is capable at any level of knowing what is necessary, knowing what is true in every moment. This part of the being doesn’t require training. This part of the being doesn’t need to be fed information, doesn’t need to be given an explanation. It exists in a primordial, intuitive state of awareness—a pure awareness that to the working of the ordinary mind, that pure awareness feels like emptiness, yet that emptiness contains the fullness of all of creation. And the most important part of a human being’s journey, or we’ll say, one of the most important parts, is the ability of a human being to find, to discover or rest in that place of intuitive knowledge and wisdom. The human mind can create all kinds of intellectual systems that explain the phenomena of the universe or the world, or that attempt to explain human behavior or ideas, but it’s also a true statement that those are a constructed reality or constructed realities within a human being. And those constructed realities become a lens through which we look out into the world.

Once we understand the principles behind this deepest look inside of ourselves, we begin to realize that most of the work we have to do as individuals is to unburden ourselves from those constructed realities. This is not to say that those constructed realities don’t have their function or that they don’t have practical applications, but there’s a great deal of effort hat human beings put into supporting those constructs, to making them hold a person’s understanding of other people and the universe. And the more anxiety that a person has, the more they tend to create a structure around what they believe to be the knowledge or wisdom they have learned.

There are so many opportunities in life, even with people that we are very intimate with, there are so many opportunities to be surprised by their behavior, to be in awe of the intricate ways in which they express themselves, or the kind and intimate ways they share themselves. The openness that we look for, the truth that we look for is hard for us to experience if we’re trying to hold that constructed reality in place, trying to achieve an outcome that we believe is good for our own being, or trying to have control over the things in life that give us security. All of these things are conditioned and conditional by that constructed reality.

All of this is part of the material world. All of this is a shared construction. It doesn’t make it good or bad, it just makes it like a maze that you have to find your way through. There’s nothing particularly hidden, except that we hide from ourselves, or that we’re unwilling to see. So, if we take the journey inward or follow our curiosity with an openness, every door is opened. Some doors are needing of more persistence to be opened, but certainly all doors are within the capacity of a human being to open and experience that greater understanding, that greater source of all that we consider to be reality. There are so many ways for this knowledge to be revealed. We might say there are as many ways as there are people because we all have a path that we follow based on our choicest that are made in freedom, that are made with the limitations that we have, but also that are made with the opportunity for greater understanding, greater capacity, greater change and transformation.

Every spiritual teacher takes a different path. Every devotee or student can follow that path, but ultimately, the devotee or the student must find their own path. The change comes on the path, on the journey. It gradually builds momentum. There’s a tipping point where things become easier. Part of the easier means that there’s less burden to carry. Part of the easier is that there are fewer expectations. And part of what becomes easy comes because our understanding of what we need changes and becomes smaller. We don’t need as many things to satisfy our curiosity. We don’t need so many things to give us security. We don’t need so much to help us hold those worlds together. We simply bear witness to the world. We exist in relation to the world, and it can feel like we’re independent even though we are tightly woven into the fabric of this creation as well. And this understanding alone should tell us that the part of us that we’re using to listen, to know, to see isn’t the most essential part of us. That our listening and hearing, our ability to see and understand are more limited than we know.

So, we might say, as many have said before, that there’s really nothing to know, or that we can’t know anything, which is a partial truth, but still, it carries the seed of a truth that helps us find that inner dimension of our being where this ability resides. Because we are in a material realm, our ability to access that will feel like a hit-or-miss proposition. Sometimes we hit the mark, we understand, we move forward, but then there are times when we feel like we miss. We become stagnant or unmotivated. But even the idea that we must take action has to be questioned. The idea that we need to do anything should be questioned. And those things that become the actions we take serve us rather than hindering us. And those actions that we take that become obstacles dissipate and fall away.

But as it has been said, the laws which govern this kind of realm in creation are not the laws of the world. They’re not the laws that seem to exist in a material existence. So, the non-material is the source of transformation. We might say the spiritual, but we’re talking about what is not constructed. It’s more what we experience in that state of being that is open and curious. And in that most open and most curious state of being, there’s no anxiety and there’s no fear. There is a pure understanding that the most essential part of us can never be harmed, and anything that we fear, being harmed or being painful, are part of that constructed reality. It can be dismantled through stillness, through quiet, through an introspective curiosity, through a certain kind of humility that comes with surrender.

But these things are not without boundaries. There are ways that we protect ourselves while on this journey. We ask for help, and we’re given help always on this journey. That’s not the same thing as material help, though sometimes material help may manifest. It’s a deeper, inner transformation, a stronger more persistent presence, and help through its presence. We can give it different names. We can give this presence, this help, this awareness, all of these things, we can give this those names, but in truth, our understanding of it is expressed in the thing that we do not know. It’s expressed in something that we only see parts of, and that is God. But we travel on a voyage where we come face to face with that reality, that curiosity, presence, that truth, that place of unburdening ourselves. It’s a place where kindness and compassion come from. It’s a place where true wisdom originates before it is even formed in a manner that we can understand.

We want you to be reassured that you have this place within you. That it is with you from the creation of your being. That it both holds you and is the source of consciousness within you. And all of the things that it’s compared to are simply true. The wonder in a child’s face or in their eyes is one of its best expressions.

I can feel the doubt and the concern that, why don’t I have this or know this because I want it so much? There’s a release that comes where not even the wanting of this needs to occur. It’s an acknowledgement of who you are, more than a desire to be.

(M.C. – This is a very interesting topic, something that I think about and struggle with often. Do I need to take action? Do I need to just surrender? I’m still looking for a place to live, and I’ve given notice because I don’t want to stay here any longer. I just don’t feel like it’s good for my spirit. But, I know that I have to take steps, but then I think, do I? Supposedly the Divine, the universe is working behind the scenes. But does that mean that something is going to come forward from what I’ve already done? From all the people that I’ve spoken with? If I’m interpreting what you’re saying correctly. Sometimes I can be very black and white when things are abstract. Sometimes I think, just relax into this, and let your intuition guide you, but my intuition is always saying, Check Craigslist. Check Craigslist. Check Craigslist. Do you hear me Jeff? Hear my words?)

I hear you. There’s a difference between what can be described as a perspective, an attitude, and an orientation toward a question, rather than the effort to answer it. And so, we’ll say it in this way: There’s a premature attempt to solve the problem sometimes, in such a way that we create solutions to our problems, even though we can’t articulate those solutions. But if we work in a way where we take the tiniest first step that answers questions about where I want to live and how I want to live, and become grounded in what’s bubbling up inside of us unhindered. That’s a very naturally-flowing kind of knowledge—a kind of knowledge and wisdom that knows how to answer those questions. Then the next immediate step is not so much as us taking an action, as it is responding to this movement inside of ourselves. We can create a movement outside of ourselves and create a way and create a path, but if we keep the door open, so to speak, and we know that we have to walk out the door of our present home in search of another home, then there are still things that we do along the way, but the more we’ve constructed an answer, the harder it gets to see the answer because we rule out things that may need more presence, more openness, more experience to find its way into us. So, we’re kind of doing both things in a way. The world is moving toward us all the time, and we’re moving toward the world, and there’s always going to be a consequence of that movement. The question is, where is our movement coming from? What kind of knowledge are we using to interpret that movement. And if we’re constructing the answer before we actually see the information, or we’re constructing the answer before we’ve given the world an opportunity to speak to us, then we’re creating the obstacle as much as we’re finding the solution. And our solution remains buried in all that constructed reality somewhere that has to be let go or cut away or dropped or seen in a different way. We’re not meant to be so still and so quiet that we don’t have a voice or that we don’t have agency. Those are given to us as gifts. What we’re saying is that there’s more knowledge available to us from a certain place inside of us that helps all of that movement, all of those actions come into perspective. So, the question might not be whether you should look on Craigslist, but you may not need to look on Craigslist a dozen times a day. You may be able to talk to a friend and find an opening because you chose to be open to your friend. You may have an awareness that when you leave the clerk at the grocery store, you see a notice for something that you’ve never seen before. So, you’re becoming alive and aware to the world around you, and letting it speak to you in different ways. And you’ll have the discernment to see and know which is a burden, which is fluff, which is resonant, which is strong, which is weak. I think you understand. But there is a time when you put it away and you don’t do anything at all, like when you go to sleep at night.

(M.C. - I devoted most of yesterday to not doing anything at all. I feel that I’m very, very open, but I’m also clear on what I don’t want. But that’s not what I’m focused on. I’m focused on an ideal living environment. Period.)

It’s okay to choose and to want something as long as that choosing and that want are not driven by the wrong parts of your being.

(M.C. – Yeah. Thank you.)

Just a further explanation or a refinement that might make a difference for some of the understanding of this is that the wisdom and the knowledge that you have within you, I’m saying that you don’t need to go out to acquire it. But that’s not the same thing as moving about in the world. So, we want to make the distinction between how you make decisions, the perspective that you have on your decisions, those are where that curiosity and that open inner space is serving you, we’re saying you don’t need to take action to have that wisdom and knowledge. Without that, the going out and taking steps, that lack of wisdom and knowledge become the obstacle. So, we’re trying to tap into that inner part of ourselves that doesn’t need to be added to. But we’re still living in this realm and this reality where our agency and our choices, and what we love and what we desire, what motivates us internally, those are still things that we respond to. But we don’t respond to them with a preconceived idea or a conception of those. That is the obstacle. Does that help clear that up?

(M.C. – A little bit.)

It’s through our agency that we learn, and part of that agency is what helps direct us inward.