What is Real?

Asking ourselves what is real and what isn’t seems a bit crazy. Clearly everything appears to be real in some sense. Even if we were to see a mirage or some sort of hallucination it is real in some sense at some level. In this article I’m going to try and inspect the question of what is real and hopefully give a better meaning to the definition of the word in our daily lives.

When you try and Google the definition of the term “real” you get, “ actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact, not imagined or supposed”. There is some truth in the Google definition but I don’t think it’s complete. “Actually existing” doesn’t necessarily mean something is real. The mirage in the desert exists as it is but the image is not in fact what you see. When you are dreaming everything is real, you are wherever you appear to be in fact while you are there, until you wake up.

In the non-dualist school of philosophy known as Vedanta real is defined as what is “permanent”. I think that this is a much more precise definition. Everything seems real, for a time but what do we know of that really lasts? This is a tricky question because the answers that we generally think of are more in terms of durability. We might think of rocks as being real because they last a long time or don’t decay. Rocks do last a very long time but rocks can be both destroyed and created. Rocks are being formed as you read this and they are also being destroyed as you read this. So, if one of, or the most durable things that we can think of aren’t real then what is?

What is real is what never changes and is always present. In this moment what do you find is always present and has always been present? It’s not your computer, that wasn’t there before and won’t be there forever. It’s not your house or the contents therein. It’s not even your body which is always changing as time goes on.

The only thing that is Real is Now. Not this moment because this moment in time will pass but the present. Even when we think back to our youth it is always Now. Our past is now and our future is Now. Everything exists in the Now and everything that will exist exists in the Now. Interesting how we never think about Now yet everything that has ever happened is happening Now…

Once again I hope you enjoyed the article and it got you thinking. If you liked what you read why not resteem it so that others can enjoy it as well?