What is External Reality and What is Internal Reality?

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modernagespirituality

This post was most recently updated on July 9th, 2020

With the sense perception, it’s easier to understand the external reality. Whatever exists in the external world comes into external reality.

You see the sun, moon, stars, air, sky, earth, ocean, and different natural elements of life, that are already placed in the universe.

You see the cosmic universe, along with the physical manifestation of life created by humans. It’s all are part of the external reality.

When it comes to internal reality, you have dreams, desires, want, needs, pleasures, thoughts, feelings, emotions, breath, sensation, imagination, subtle impressions, memories, and more.

You perceive the external reality, in the mind. The senses are an instrument for you to perceive life. You don’t see the outside life in its natural form, rather you see it, with your individual perception.

When you see the physical manifestation of life, you see your own dreams and desires into it. You don’t see the house or car, but you see your dream car or your dream house into the physical manifestation of life.

When you experience the situation, people, or events in your life, you perceive them out of your experiences, but you don’t perceive them in its natural form.

When you perceive the present situation, people, or events of life in its natural form, you can see the past, present, and future of every situation, people, or events of your life. You can see that anything that appears in the present moment, always comes out of the past.

Without the past, no situation or event can appear in the moment. Unless you can see the past, present, and future of the situation, it’s difficult to make choice and decisions in your life.

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When you perceive the external reality, you perceive it, from the glasses of the inner reality. Your external reality is only the reflection of your inner reality.

The external reality exists, but you don’t perceive it in its natural form, but you only see what your individual perception, allows you to see.

When your mind is absolutely engaged in the external reality, it remains occupies with the things of the outside world.

Your outside experiences create your internal reality, which in turn results in your future. What’s important here to know is, life is not limited to the external reality, rather you also have the internal reality that remains untouched by you.

Your internal reality is the subtle world, while the external world is where you experience the physical reality.

“If your mind is only engaged in the external reality, your life remains far from the existential truth of life.”

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What is the existential truth?

The existential truth is, your external reality forms your inner reality. Your inner reality again turns into your outside experience, as your choice and decisions depend on your inner reality.

If you only live with the external reality, you never realize, what kind of experiences and impressions you have accumulated inside.

You may think that all the choices and decisions are part of your conscious choice, but you will never be aware that your inner reality, was formed out of your external reality. Whatsoever choice and decisions you make is simply because of the accumulated stuff you carry in your mind.

When you consciously connect with the inner reality, you can create an absolutely new path for yourself, which is independent of the experiences that you go through in the outside world.

What happens when you connect with the internal reality?

Life can be lived in two ways. One way is to remain engaged in the external reality, without knowing the actual truth behind it, and the other way is to stay connected with your inner world and allow life to unfold in the external world.

When you connect with the inner world, you become the observer of life. When your attention is outside, your mind keeps on picking different desires, and those desires get registered in your mind.

No sooner, those desires become your thought process and become your outside reality of life.

When you connect with the inner world, you become aware of the present moment. Your awareness grows at the moment and at the same time, you also stay aware of, all the thoughts and images that cross your mind.

With the inner attention, you don’t allow yourself to get engaged with all the external situations, events, or experiences of life, rather you become cautious with every choice and decision of life.

You pick things that are necessary and serve the need of the moment.

“When you connect with the inner world, slowly the unnecessary things of the external world gets drop from your life.”

As you have fewer engagements in the external world, your awareness gets better in the inner world.

Slowly your inner world becomes absolutely clear to you. Staying connected with the inner world, you can read your thought process in different situations, events, and experiences of your life.

You become an observer not only of the external world but also of your inner world.

When you can observe your internal and external world, you notice that no part of life happens out of luck, chance or fate, rather everything in life comes out of a definite process.

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Life follows a definite process. Your external reality creates the whole subtle world inside of you. Later your choices and decisions out of the subtle world create your external reality, and this forms a circle. This is a karmic circle in which every person’s life revolves.

When you can perceive the karmic circle of outside in, and inside out, slowly you begin to detach yourself from both the external and internal reality.

The inner reality is just floated on the surface of the mind, but the mind in its purest form is simply an observer of both the external and internal life.

Till the time, you live with the outward attention, the inner world doesn’t exist for you. The only reality that exists for you, is the external reality.

The time you connect yourself from inside, you come across both your internal as well as external reality.

When you stay aware of both your internal and external reality and see the circle formed by it, you separate yourself from both the external and internal reality and begin to experience life as an observer.

When your interest only remains in the external world, you simply separate yourself from the whole truth. The whole process of life is to take you inward.

The Whole Truth: The Core of The Ultimate Understanding

All your pain and suffering and stress exists to serve you to make the connection with your inner world. With life’s joy and happiness, you don’t connect from within, but you stay engaged with the external reality.

It’s only the pain and sorrow and mental agony that connects you with the inner world. All your pain and suffering is nothing but the sensation in the body. You are not familiar with your inner sensations and thus it gets difficult to understand the subtle world. To understand the sensation, a conscious effort is required. All your experiences of life are limited to your sensations. You cannot experience life beyond the sensations.

Once you become an observer of your internal world, then it becomes easier to observe the external world.

The ultimate purpose of life is to realize the source of life in you. All your life energy should be utilized to seek the truth of life. On the path of truth, all other purposes of life get served on its own.