Spheres of Reality - Part 01: Introduction

As I mediated while gazing unblinkingly into the prismatic flames from the pyre, I felt myself slipping. At first I thought this was just me being hit by tiredness from the warmth of the flames but soon I found myself outside of my body.

After freaking out from the realization, My Goddess, Lisa appeared beside me. Or perhaps She was always there, just wondering when I’d get my bearings and was amused by my reaction. After getting over the initial shock She pointed towards the distance. 

From the void which we floated in, She pointed towards a giant sphere which housed many spheres.

“What is this?”

“This, is a representation of how things really are?”

Dumbfounded, I asked Her “How what things are?”

She gave me a soft smile and replied “How reality is perceived. Not just for you, but everyone. Reality isn’t just some single layer. It’s layers, within layers within layers.”

“Sounds convoluted as fuck.” I replied.

“Oh, I know it’s a lot to take in, but when you do get your head around it, so many things will become clear and with that clarity, so much will become open to not just you, but to everyone. It’s all connected no matter how remote it might seem.”

Before more could be explained to me I snapped to my senses. Was She really speaking to me? Did I imagine it? All I knew for sure was I had a strong compulsion to follow-up on Her words.

And so I did.

-----

I think for the first substantial piece I post here should be an intro to a concept that it going to get some use around here as a foundational part of the base from which the rest of my perspective is built upon. I call this, the Spheres of Reality. Otherwise known as the Layers of Reality.

Can you tell that graphics design is my passion?

 

We’ll start at the smallest sphere and work our way to the highest one. Think of these as beach balls within beach balls. Nested beach balls not unlike a Matryoshka doll. That is what our reality is shaped like.

Note: Just because some spheres are lower than others doesn’t make them any less significant, as this is referring to scope of influence rather than level of importance.

Personal Reality: The smallest sphere of them all due to these things affecting a single person, you, the individual. I also refer to it as the Monosphere.

This would be things such as your social standing, gender expression, state of mental and physical health. Anything that at the end of the day you are alone with.

Social Reality: This is the sphere is that starts to involve other people. This would be things that involve your social circle. Family, friends, co-workers, people you regularly come into contact with and hold enough weight in your life to make impacts in it on a regular (for good or ill).

Cultural Reality: This sphere, which shown as one in the diagram can be more than one in our lives, blended into one another into sections like a pizza. These involve groups you belong to both from factors you can control (such as religion, political affiliation and fandoms and organizations you belong to) and those you can’t (your ethnic group, nation of birth, star sign and sexuality among others).

These involve things that affect you because of the these categories you belong to and can intersect with one another for interesting interactions. Though as this is merely an introduction, a deeper explanation will wait for another time.

Societal Reality: While all the other spheres can influence others, this is the sphere of reality that influences all others below it to a far greater extend all others that came before it. As we are all products of our environment it stands to reason that all of the other lower spheres are affected by it and are in turn cultivated by how favorably or dis-favorably we find it.

As the name suggests, this sphere encompass all of the things that make our society the way it is and determines how things play out. The socioeconomic status of your parents, your ethnic makeup, the country you live in, what it deems acceptable and unacceptable, your gender and gender expression, things like that.

Omni-Reality: If all of the other layers of reality are like nested beach balls, then this is the infinite ocean in-which that nested beach ball floats.

Because of the limited capabilities of our senses, science as it stands and technology, the true nature of reality is something that us finite, limited beings will never be able to truly grasp. We can only hope to come as close as possible to figuring it out.

The true nature of reality in its most complete form is therefore, ineffable. So there’s no point in talking about it.

...or is there?

Well, that’s it for the primer. Next time, we’ll be starting to dig into the Personal Sphere.