I have to confess that I do not see the “ultimate reality” or “naked reality”. And I haven’t a hope of doing so.
But then I’m not claiming to. That was never the point.
Our experiences and our narratives, are a moving frame; a frame that is advancing through time. A frame in which the contents inevitably change as experiences are experienced and as understandings develop, deepen or are transcended.
As the saying goes, no one can put their foot into the same river twice.
Consider:
Many of us who, have looked at a bias held by another, will have thought, ‘This person is being partially blinded by this bias.’ I.e., they are not seeing the world around them as clearly as they might.
I’ve told the story several times about walking into a psych lecture in university. The subject was Freud’s Defense Mechanisms. 45 minutes later, I walked out and saw a changed world around me.
Experiences and insights inevitably push at us to absorb them. After all, we live in an existence wherein change is said to be the only constant. Change presses upon us; whether we open our arms to it or not.
Change changes us. The contents of our moving frame changes. What we are experiencing changes because the contents of our frame have changed.
And, yes, our experience is all still undoubtedly subjective.
There is no question of pulling the curtain away and seeing the “ultimate reality” or “naked reality”. That was never the point.
But the person who transcends a partially blinding bias will see what is there to be seen more clearly without the distortion.
And thus it is with all beliefs, religions, biases, opinions, hopes and fears; to name a few of our sources of distortion.
Each distortion we diminish lets us see a bit more clearly. Each moves us some immeasurable distance closer to the unobtainable ultimate. Each new thing we learn changes the contents of the frame and alters the view.
If the mutability of the moving frame that our experiences arise from is grasped, then the possibility of influencing what the frame is fed can be conceived.
Choosing to try to diminish all the beliefs, opinions, biases, hopes and fears from within a frame seems likely to increasingly clarify the frame’s perception of the reality around it.
It is a road that promises new vistas for the frame without ever a hint of a promise of the road’s end.
After trying many other things, I’ve found that this is the thing that I find the most intriguing.