My thoughts on the nature of reality, are that reality is a projection based upon the individual’s past actions (karma). These actions, like seeds, render a continuous stream of existence. Like a projection, our past colors each element we interact with, observe, or believe in. The house I live in, the people I live with, the job I hold – all are projections. It is my karma to render what I experience.

Even God is a projection, as I do not yet experience enlightened truth, my view of any great expression is only what I can perceive or conceptualize. In this way, Buddha Nature, God, Higher Self, all are forms of me of my projections. The greatest aspect of self has rendered these potentials. Yet, I believe, beyond all of the projections is the field of direct experience. It is empty of existing any particular way. As a field of energy it is akin to an ocean of endless depth. Experiencing moments of the ocean I can attest to it as a reality for myself. The void from which manifestation manifests.

Our past actions are like shards of crystal within us. Each shard has it’s own color and shape, it’s own imperfection. The Light of the True persona within shines into our nature, striking those shards, which in turn project the light in a myriad of unique ways. Our world that we experience gives us an idea of what already is within us. That karmic debt we carry.

Therefore the world out there, shouldn’t be thought of as “self existent” for it’s coloring and illumination is sourced from within our own nature. As each person is unique, so too is their world and so too is the path to freedom.

The void from which all things manifest is emptiness or as the following translation of the Tao te Ching reads, “darkness”:

….Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

Tao Te Ching Chp. 1 (translation by Stephen Mitchell ’88)

Mitchell translates this part of Chapter 1 of the Tao Te Ching (quoted above), “This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.”

When I had my near death experience as a child, when my evangelical father had his near death experience towards the end of his life, and when my friend was clinically dead for a few minutes, there was darkness.

My friend who was hit by a bus as a child, he believed the darkness meant nothing exists… Yet I pondered, “you were aware of existing, therefore you existed outside the body/brain mechanism.”

My father, on the other hand, the darkness for him was pure terror. Ironically, he had told me for years that when he died he wanted to explore the vastness of space. To move throughout the universe at the speed of thought. Space is mostly a void of darkness, and yet experiencing that he felt abandoned and lost.

As for my experience… as a teenager I experienced the darkness as well. For me it was a feeling of love and acceptance. It was as deep as the ocean – never ending and ever holding me.

In meditation I often find my visualizations turning to a field of dark waters. Upon which I witness a pillar of light. I am drawn to the darkness and the Light. The equilibrium of true nature.