Humans are built to view reality through a prism which is something we call the ego. The ego calls itself “I”; it has a name, a face, a history, memories and a personality. Oftentimes, we as humans forget that our ego is merely a lens through which we see the world.

When talking about the Universe and its nature or Mother Earth, it is important to note that what happens outside of us is a reflection of what happens inside of us. Humans, in a way, serve as a projection of the Universe. The human psyche and its patterns have patterns that are analogous to patterns that occur on a societal level, global level, the whole natural cycle and even the cosmic level. We are built from the same materials, we behave in similar patterns. Yet humans, due to their very nature, look to their ego to give them insight on big questions about life and the Universe – all having different perspectives and adhering to different polarities in regards to various issues concerning our life. The answers the person does get will be a direct reflection of what is happening within them, so I will further proceed to elaborate the principle of “As above, so below; as within, so without”.

Focusing towards the outer world through the inner world of man is a phenomenon common to all people – the interpretation of stimuli coming from the outside world, its processing and integration into the system of the inner world. This process, as we know it, is the foundation of the psyche and is in itself, a way of life. In the ocean of information available to us in this era of living, the minds of people are being constantly rippled and in sync with the waves of the ocean, day after day; allowing the flow of water to take their mind to various places; getting sucked into circles of whirling waters of blockages and counter-currents; finding themselves chained to the depths of the waters by the anchor of their own burden, putting themselves into the situation of self-created and self-perceived difficulties which limits their ability to swim up to the top where the perspective and perception of true beauty is present; where the sun shines upon the flickering waters of the surface; where the ocean, instead of becoming the embodiment of fears and difficulties, transforms into peace and the pure reflection of the heavenly blue sky.

With this realization, the individual is put face to face with what can seemingly appear as one of the greatest challenges that they have faced up until this point, and that is looking at the other side of things, the other aspect, the other polarity. Our life is not an exclusive creation of the happenings and events outside of us – on the contrary, our life is the creation of what is inside of us, what resides deep within our core, and throughout our lifetime we essentially project our internal life, externalizing what is burning in our spirit. The claim that I am making is not meant to be some mystical allegory – on the contrary, this principle is rooted within all of us, the only thing that is lacking in this situation is our awareness of it. This mechanism is often out of the bounds of our cognitive prism – and the rejection of it is a direct implication of the concept itself. The nature of objective reality can seem relatively confusing looking at it from this perspective, because we, as beings are directly shaped by perception and perspective and it is practically impossible to observe reality without the filter of the ego. The subjectivity of perspective is a key to the human, and within the ocean I discussed previously, the subjectivity of perspective determines the point through which the reality is looked upon. What is interesting is that the very word “perspective” itself has the semantic meaning of “looking through”, meaning that every time we look at something, we look through something. By this, we are referring to the internal processing and interpretation of the stimuli from both the external and internal world. Ultimativity for man is unnatural due to the very nature of reality which consists of the principle of polarity, meaning that every side that exists has an opposite side, every coin has two sides. Occurrences often tend to have not just two, but many perspectives and from all of those perspectives, we have the ability to choose which perspective we want to see and identify with. The prism through which we understand the reality consists of already established patterns of thought and emotion, often combined with cognitive egocentrism that continually restricts and automates the direction in which the mind swims. Once a human is aware of this, he has the authority to change the direction, and that is the moment when the human decides whether they will be bound by the anchor in the dark depths of the ocean, or it will rise up to the surface and fall into the embrace of the waters, the sky, the Sun and Moon.

The already established mental models are naturally a subject of change with the flow of time as an unconscious and spontaneous process – but the conscious and deliberate initiation and the potential passage through this process for the purpose of personal progress is something which often leads to confrontation with difficulties, fear of oneself and that unknown perspective and from this often rises withdrawal, lethargy and passivity; despite this, the opposite result can be achieved – thriving, taking action, activity, confronting and bettering ourselves; the bounding of the anchor to many has become a habit, a way of life, a comfort zone from which they are afraid to come out, a caretaker, a mother, protection and salvation; and despite this, the opposite result can come about, the bounding can become a darkness which the person seeks to transform and integrate, a shadow part of us which is not let to loosely control us, but rather a conscious effort is made to take things into our own hands and rise like a phoenix from the ashes. It is crucial to remember that what we see outside of us is not meant to determine our internal life, but rather what we see outside of us is largely determined by our internal life – and if we are not pleased with what we view in the outside world, the internalization of change is the first and crucial step towards self-realization and constructive externalization.

Ilina Dimovska