The Inner Light Theory

The Inner Light Theory - Look around and concentrate on what you experience. Perhaps it is a warm summer day and you are sitting on an outdoor patio. You see a deep blue sky and smell the fragrance of the flowers in bloom. Wind blowing through the branches of a nearby tree provides a soothing melody. You feel the texture of these papers in your hands, and can still taste the last sip of your beverage. Of course, your experience will be different; you may be in a university library, at your desk at work, or relaxing on the couch in your home. You may be smelling the fragrance of flowers, the sweetness of newly baked cookies, or the lingering odor of disinfectant. You undoubtedly will be experiencing many things from your five senses, plus an introspective view of your mind's operation. These are the things you perceive, and are therefore the things that define your reality. But now imagine that you suddenly awake and realize it was only a dream. The things you had been experiencing can now be seen from an enlightened perspective. Before you awoke, you justifiably believed that the sights and sounds you experienced were genuine, originating in an external physical universe. The tree, papers, and patio seemed more that just your perception of them; they were real objects with an independent existence. Or so you thought. But now that you are awake you have gained a greater knowledge, the knowledge that your previous reality was not genuine. The things that you had been perceiving exist only in your mind, and nowhere else.