Rewiring Your Reality — The Spiritual Path to True Perception
How Your Brain Constructs Your World and How You Can Change It
You’ve probably heard the old saying, “Perception is reality.” But have you ever stopped to consider how profound that statement is? Your brain, that three-pound marvel inside your skull, shapes everything you experience. It filters, interprets, and constructs your entire world.
“Once you bring an inner perception of life beyond the 5 senses, your life will begin to happen the way you want.” Sadhguru
What if the way you perceive things isn’t just coloring your experiences but creating your reality? It’s a mind-bending concept. The chair you’re sitting on, the device you’re reading this on, even your own body — all of it exists in your consciousness because your brain tells you it does.
But here’s where it gets exciting. If your perception shapes reality, altering your perception could change your world. It’s not just positive thinking — it’s rewiring the very fabric of your existence. What would happen if you could consciously shift your perceptions? What new possibilities might open up?
Where Does Consciousness Originate?
Imagine for a moment that your consciousness isn’t a product of your brain but rather something it receives. Your brain acts as an antenna, concentrating and interpreting signals from a vast sea of awareness. This radical shift in perspective questions everything you thought you knew about the nature of your mind.
But what happens if you remove or alter the receiver? If consciousness exists independently of the brain, changing your brain’s “tuning” could dramatically shift your entire reality experience. This concept opens up incredible possibilities for expanding human perception and understanding and gives you a powerful tool to alter the quality of your reality experience.
Does a Tree Falling in a Forest Make a Sound If No One Is There?
Take a moment. Look around you. If you weren’t here to perceive these objects, would they still exist? Common sense says yes. But consider this: what you perceive as solid objects are atoms and molecules in constant motion, mostly space. Your perception creates the desk in front of you from this nothingness.
Run your hand along the surface. It feels solid. Yet, at a microscopic level, your fingers never actually touch it. The electrons in your skin repel the electrons in the desk, creating the illusion of contact. Your brain interprets these forces as “solid” and “smooth.” But that’s just your perception at work, constructing a reality you can navigate.
Now, close your eyes. The desk is still in your mind’s eye, right? You’ve created a mental model based on past experiences. But is that model accurate? Or is it just another layer of perception, further removed from whatever underlying reality might exist? The more you ponder it, the more you realize how much your perception shapes your world.
“Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It’s certainty.” — Stephen Colbert
Blue and Green are the Same Color
Would you perceive the world differently if your language had only three words for colors? As a graduate student in Japan studying Cultural Anthropology, I wondered how language affects our worldview. Living in Japan, I was particularly aware of the differences in how English speakers and Japanese speakers perceive reality.
If you point to the blue sky and ask a Japanese speaker what color it is, they will say ‘Aoi,’ which is the Japanese word for blue. If you point to a green grassy field and ask them the color, they will also say ‘Aoi,’ the identical word.
How could this be?
Do the Japanese see green and blue as the same color? If you look at a color spectrum, the frequencies of blue and green are adjacent. While English speakers divide those frequencies into two groups of colors, Japanese speakers look at it as one color, ‘Aoi.’
“There is no truth. There is only perception.” — Gustave Flaubert
Who is correct? Both are, and both are not. In reality, there are infinite frequencies on the color spectrum. English divides the blue-green range into two colors. The Japanese language groups the frequencies into one color.
A native Japanese speaker perceives blue and green as the same color.¹
How does this perception-creation loop work in your daily life? Think about the last time you walked into a room. Did you see everything in that space? Or did your brain fill in the gaps based on expectations and past experiences? Your perception isn’t just passively receiving information — it’s constructing your reality moment by moment.
Consider this: when you look at a tree, you’re not seeing it as it truly is. Your brain interprets light waves, creating color, depth, and texture. The “tree” you perceive is a mental construct built from sensory data and shaped by your unique experiences and beliefs. You’re creating that tree in your mind each time you look at it.
Why This Matters on a Spiritual Path
As soon as you learn something about something, you will never see it the same again.
“When you teach a child that a bird is named ‘bird’, the child will never see the bird again.” — — J. Krishnamurti
Krishnamurti says that when you teach a child that a bird is named ‘bird,’ the child will never see the bird again. Why? Because learning a label for bird is a representation of a bird, not the bird itself. When taught the word ‘bird,’ the child can never perceive a bird that same way again.
This concept extends far beyond just visual perception. Your beliefs, emotions, and past experiences shape how you interpret and, therefore, perceive the world around you. Have you ever noticed how two people can witness the same event and come away with entirely different impressions? That’s because each person’s unique perceptual filters color their perception and the resulting experience.
The first causality of humankind is ‘know thyself.’ It is the cornerstone of the journey towards self-realization. To know yourself requires that you perceive yourself as you are, without filters, conditioning, beliefs, or emotional charges.
Just as a child will never see a bird once he learns the word ‘bird,’ if you have mental and emotional baggage skewing your perception, it is challenging to perceive who and what you truly are.
We all have old baggage in beliefs, conditioning, and old knowledge. So what do we do?
Three Practices to Clean Your Perception
1) See the world through a child’s eyes. Pretend you are a stranger to Earth and have never been here before. You are seeing people, animals, cars, buildings, words, all for the first time.
Practice this several times as you go about your day. Do it while working, shopping, driving, or having coffee.
2) Elevate your Self-Observation as the witness.
You begin practicing self-observation, turning your attention inward to study your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. As you go about your day, you consciously notice the different functions within yourself — intellectual, emotional, instinctive, and physical.
You start by observing your thoughts. When a thought arises, you label it: “This is a thought.” You notice how one thought leads to another, creating a chain of mental activity.
Next, you tune into your emotions. You pause to identify your feelings as you interact with others: “This is an emotional response. I am feeling [fill in the blank].”
Observe your body as you move through your day. Notice your posture, if you are tense or relaxed, and how your body instinctively reacts to things like a loud noise.
3) Self-Remember
As you go about your day, make a conscious effort to self-remember. Pause frequently and bring your attention to the simple fact of your existence. Feel the aliveness within you, the pure sense of “I AM” that underlies all your experiences. Self-remembering isn’t about thinking or analyzing — it’s about directly sensing your presence.
“Consciousness of self as one is, without theories or conclusions, is meditation. When our thoughts and feelings blossom and die, we enter another sphere.” ― Jeanne De Salzmann, The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff
Notice how this practice shifts your perception. As you maintain awareness of your existence, the world around you seems more vivid and immediate. Colors appear brighter, and you may hear sounds more precise. You’re not just observing your surroundings but actively participating in each moment. This is the power of self-remembering — it grounds you in the present and connects you to a more profound sense of Self.
As you reflect on the power of perception, you may realize that you’ve only scratched the surface. The journey to shift your perception to know yourself and reshape your reality is ongoing, filled with moments of insight and challenges to overcome.
You’ve learned that your perceptions shape your world in subtle and profound ways. By practicing seeing the world through the eyes of a child, self-observation, and self-remembrance, you will take essential steps towards a deeper understanding of your consciousness and your true Self — I AM.
As you continue to strengthen your muscle of awareness and clean your perception, you will find that each day, the world looks very different to you. You will receive epiphanies about who and what you authentically are. You will receive answers to your long-standing questions. And, your experience of life’s challenges will move from being overwhelmed to having confidence and knowing that you are headed in the direction you are meant to be.
You will begin to realize the true Self that you are.
Would you like to receive free I AM meditations?
Subscribe and be one of the first to receive the soon-to-be-released Handbook for Planet Earth — Where I explore actionable hacks to integrate personal growth, mindfulness, and spirituality into daily life.
— -
[1] In modern Japan, due to mass media, they now have a new word for blue, “buruu,” Ever since, new generations now see the different colors for blue-green,
