To Affect and Be Affected by Reality

The effects we create can’t be undone once they manifest. They happened. The power to create change comes from our free will choice to do so, based on the effects that lead to what exists now.

We have the free will to choose what we do with many of the behavior and actions we engage in. The internal expressions of consciousness are thought and emotion, while the external expression is action. Through our actions we are causal agents who create effects into reality. This causal power to generate into reality comes from the power of consciousness.

Most of the time, before we create into the external shared objective reality, we create a reflection in our internal subjective reality. As a basic example, maybe you want to create a fork that different from others, or maybe you lived thousands of years ago to create the first fork. First it’s thought of, then salience and value is applied to its importance for us to care enough to do it. The creation of the fork was caused by consciousness, first in thought, then valued and cared for to then culminate in the act of creating it into reality. The resulting effect in reality is that a fork came into existence.

In the beginning there is nothing, a blank slate, and then we slowly start to receive data input from our environment through our senses. This is information or knowledge about reality. At first this input is consumed by consciousness as automatic stimulus which is processed subconsciously or unconsciously and can feed information to the conscious mind. All information can also be processed at an active conscious awareness level with thinking.

In the active sense of processing information, we engage in processing information through logic to filter data and find similarity and differences as well as inconsistencies or contradictions. This processing can filter out bad or false information and generate a more accurate understanding of reality. This processing forms our perception of reality, which is out individual internal subjective map of the external objective reality.

With all our knowledge and the understanding gained from processing it, we also use our emotional capacities to make decisions. With salience, valuation and weighing one thing against another we decide what is more or less important to us to act upon. Our emotional capacity also processes information we receive subconsciously or consciously through the thoughts we generate. By caring for some things more than others we make choices. When referring to mind and heart, these are symbols that reflect qualities of consciousness, like the mind with thinking, or the heart with caring and courage.

When the two internal expression of consciousness are united, they can lead to a unity with the third expression of action. Often it requires courage and willpower to act in alignment and balance with ourselves in order to reach the wisdom of right-action. We can form unity with all three expressions of consciousness, but that doesn’t mean we are acting wisely.

This is not to simply be united with false thoughts. Or supporting those thoughts with feelings that care to act on those thoughts, and to then act and create it into reality. That’s acting in foolishness rather than wisdom. We must not only be united within our expressions of consciousness, but also with reality, existence and truth, and especially moral truth in order to engage in the wisdom of right-action.

Consciousness is affected by reality. The information from reality is the input-grammar as knowledge which we can think about in our “mind”. From there, we can generate a chain of causality as causal agents. The knowledge and thoughts about it can be processed with logic to enhance our understanding. We then feel a certain way about our thoughts and what we understand, leading us to care in our “hearts” to do things. We develop the courage and will power to execute certain actions that produce effects into the world which affect reality.