What is Real?

As one of the first lines in A Course in Miracles states: ”Nonexistence, by it’s very essence, cannot exist”.

In order to help wrap one’s head around this concept, please consider a thermometer.
A thermometer measures the presence of heat. It does not measure the presence of ‘cold’, since ‘cold’ is not really a thing. ‘Cold’ is the term that we use to mean the absence of a thing; heat.

Heat vs. Cold
Light vs. Dark
Existence vs. Nonexistence
Love vs. Hate
Truth vs. Falsehood

Consider these each as single variables which indicate the degree of the presence of a thing.
Nonexistence/Falsity is to Reality/Truth as Darkness is to Light.
One cannot aim darkness at light and cover a room in shadow.

The difficulty lies in telling the difference between appearance and essence.
All of these variables appear to have opposites, however, Truth cannot have an opposite. By virtue of a thing’s existence it would also fall under the category of Truth/Reality.

Buddha taught that “suffering exists, but none who suffer”
Suffering exists, but the experience of suffering does not.
'The experience of suffering' is to 'Acceptance of what is' as Cold is to Heat.

Everything is real.
Seeing things as ‘not real’ is just the absence of acknowledging them as being real.
Illusions are real.
In order to transcend illusions we cannot imagine that they are not real.

“You can never know the Truth because you are the Truth….and yet…
…..the fact of the matter is that Truth cannot be described nor explained.
Truth is ‘What-Is’
There is nothing objective about truth, which essentially is pure subjectivity”
-Ramesh Balsekar

One of our core human needs is to be seen as real.
One the greatest feats we can accomplish is to see All as real.
Doubt, over-rationalizing, and denial all inhibit our ability to see reality.
Seeing things as real means that we are better able to quantify and qualify exactly what something is and what it means.
It becomes totally apparent that “This is an illusion” and “This is objective Truth”.
Doubt is a willingness to consider something as being ‘not real’.
Willingness to consider something as ‘not real’ is the absence of discernment.

Subjectivity and objectivity are the same thing.

-Rob