On Reality

1. There is an objective Reality - i.e., a Reality which exists independent of our perceptions of it.
   
   
2. Each person has his or her own subjective reality, which is an experience of Reality as filtered through that particular person's mind, senses, and tensions.
   
   
3. No living person's ordinary subjective reality can ever be a perfect (or even near-perfect) representation of Reality.
   
   
4. Reality (or a relatively close approximation of it) can, however, be experienced briefly in certain extraordinary states of consciousness.
   
   
5. There are also lesser extraordinary states of consciousness in which one does not experience Reality directly, but in which one's subjective reality shifts so as to offer a perspective dramatically different from one's ordinary perspective, thus providing new information about the shape of Reality.
   
   
6. The extraordinary states of consciousness in which we can come close to apprehending Reality are fleeting, and even our memories of such experiences cannot be fully accessed in ordinary consciousness. However, once one has begun to have extraordinary experiences of Reality, one can, with much work, gradually adjust one's ordinary consciousness such that those experiences come to inform one's ordinary consciousness to some degree.
   
   
7. Such terms as "enlightenment" and "spiritual advancement," as I understand them, refer to the degree to which one's ordinary consciousness is informed by Reality.
   
   
8. Often the distinction between spiritual advancement and madness comes down to whether or not one's ordinary consciousness is capable of integrating one's experiences of extraordinary consciousness into a functional whole.