7.1.5 What are the characteristics of a fully developed model of reality?

 

If you are motivated to overcome your inherent ignorance of the nature of reality, it is very important to understand the characteristics of a fully developed model of reality. The model you choose to work with to overcome your ignorance and its attendant endless re-iteration of the process of birth, ageing, sorrow and death is a matter of circumstances and personal inclination. If the model does not reflect the true nature of reality, you will not become enlightened and you will remain eternally locked into the karmically active system of learning through suffering.

 

A fully developed model of reality provides the user with a path which leads from the initial state of ignorance of the true nature of all that is experienced to enlightened understanding through experience of the final and absolute nature of reality. Such a spiritual system will provide practical meditational or devotional techniques to effect the necessary transformations in consciousness. It will provide a framework, in a series of graded practical techniques and exercises, to enable the user accurately to determine both the current level of consciousness and the next step along the path.

 

When you work within the guiding structure of a fully developed model of reality which is appropriate to your individual and cultural requirements, then you can be confident that your use of the model will lead you to enlightenment. All that is required is that you diligently practise the appropriate meditative or devotional techniques, while understanding your life in the context of the teachings. A life lived in harmony with the moral structure inherent in conditioned existence and a mind working under appropriate guidance to divest itself of ignorance of the nature of reality lead inevitably to enlightenment.

 

All fully developed models of reality reflect the underlying structure of conditioned existence, each using language and imagery appropriate to its particular cultural environment. The method of approach and point of view vary from model to model. Only the following elements, which combine with different emphasis according to the evolutionary requirements of karma, remain constant in the process of becoming enlightened.

 

That/ God/ Brahman/ The Void/ Tao/ etc.

 

Every fully developed model of reality talks of material reality, discernible by the five senses, and of the non-material source of that reality. When the model has been fully understood through experience by the user, the apparent separation and duality between tangible reality and its simultaneously immanent and transcendent source is experienced as a unity. The primary purpose of the model is to effect that unity, through the evolutionary development of individual and collective consciousness.

 

Karma/ Destiny/ God’s Will/ Tao/ etc.

 

All fully articulated spiritual systems describe a natural force which brings about consequences appropriate to each individual’s thoughts and actions. This irresistible force is frequently described in the form of an implacable judge who dispenses appropriate rewards and punishments, often after death. This force cannot be defied: the individual must experience the consequences of unenlightened behaviour in this life, in the after-death state or in the lives to come.

 

Morality

 

Humanity’s need for moral systems to provide guidance in daily living is due to an unconscious awareness of the karmically reactive nature of reality. All visions of reality stemming from the experience of enlightened minds describe a way of behaving which minimises the incurring of negative compensating reactions from reality. Each moral system originated by an enlightened person is an attempt to guide others safely to realisation of the true, final and absolute nature of reality.

 

Suffering

 

Suffering is an inescapable part of incarnate experience. All fully unfolded descriptions of reality point out the educational nature of suffering. Properly understood within the context of a realised model of reality, suffering directs you to understand both your own nature and the nature of reality. Unenlightened ignorance of the true nature of ordinary experience only compounds and extends your suffering. The only sure escape from this inevitable suffering is through enlightenment.

 

Ignorance/maya/enlightenment

 

Fully realised models of reality exist to lead us from ignorance of the nature of reality to enlightenment about our own nature. Living in the ignorance of unenlightenment means living a life enmeshed in a web of illusion. Only enlightenment can dispel that illusion, as awakening from a dream brings knowledge that all that was experienced was the product of the dreaming mind, and only enlightenment can reveal the true, final and absolute nature of reality.

 

Reincarnation

 

Any fully developed model of reality, in teaching awareness of the true nature and purpose of life, must necessarily provide guidance on reincarnation. Repeated rebirth is a function of ignorance of the nature of reality. Reincarnation necessarily occurs endlessly until enlightenment provides release from the repetitive cycle of birth, ageing, suffering and death.

 

Yoga

 

Yoga is the generic name for the practical techniques which lead from ignorance to enlightenment. A fully developed model of reality will supply at least one coherent, structured system of yoga which can lead the practitioner to enlightenment. Such a yoga will always teach a practical path to the reunion of the individual mind with the immanent and transcendent source of material reality.

 

Samadhi/undistracted alertness/altered states of mind

 

All fully developed models of reality provide guidance on how to achieve the transformations of consciousness necessary to move from ordinary awareness to enlightenment. The experience of deepest samadhi, or undistracted alertness in focusing consciousness on the absolute source of perceptible reality, is necessary before enlightenment can be attained. With the sustained and effortless experience of undistracted alertness, ignorance is washed away and truth alone is understood through direct intuitive experience.