Outer world vs. Inner world

First written in Jun 4, 2019

Daily we interact with others in the outer world, yet we process these interactions inside our minds, the inner world. Essentially, there are two ways we experience reality: through the outer world of form, words, action, and otherness; and through the inner world of our thoughts, dreams, feelings, and emotions. What we perceive through our senses is only part of the story of our existence. It’s the outer part. It’s the part that gets the most attention because it is the reality with which we all interact, it’s the reason we came into this human form. You are here to learn and grow into love through the very unique experience of being born YOU. For us to experience the physical world, however, there must be duality.

Duality means contrast or opposition. We know about things because of their polarizing characteristics. The laws of the physical world require it to be so. Without dark how would we know light? Without up how would we know what down is like? We learn that there is good and bad, old and young, east and west, male and female, fear and love, and so on in this world. Science has dissected this outer, physical world into its very smallest pieces in order to understand how it works. Despite the mind-boggling discoveries of quantum physics, science still cannot tell us exactly what our inner world is all about because it cannot be studied objectively. Each mind is made up of an accumulation of experiences and memories that are proprietary and uniquely individual. We are individual units of consciousness as Tom Campbell explains in his book My Big TOE: Theory of Everything.

Consciousness is the awareness of yourself through your thoughts and feelings. This is your inner world. It is the part that gets the least amount of attention because it is the private, personal part of our reality. This is unfortunate because the mind is the starting point for any inner transformation and as such, it becomes imperative to examine what goes on inside it. Our society has diminished the value of the inner world by creating endless distractions in the outer world. But it is the inner world that affects the outer world so it makes sense to work on that first. Simply take command of what goes on inside your head. Do your thoughts support you or work against you? Are you cultivating awareness, kindness, and gratitude? Or are you giving in to fear and worry by trying to control those things that are beyond your control?

The inner world of consciousness is referred to as a state of non-duality, or a state of oneness without dichotomies. We are temporary terrestrial travelers experiencing duality but our essence is not dual, our essence lies in the twilight zone of non-duality. It’s a difficult concept to grasp because we are so comfortable with our world of black and white that imagining anything else is nearly impossible. One way to familiarize yourself with the strange concept of non-duality is to begin a regular meditation practice. You tap directly into your non–physical existence when you meditate. I challenge you to begin exploring your inner world. Take at least five minutes a day to sit quietly with yourself, no distractions. This is as important as eating healthy or brushing your teeth. Make it a part of your daily routine. You will reap enormous benefits from a mental self-care routine. Through direct experience, you will begin to see the correlations between the outer world and the inner world.