One of the most powerful insights I’ve had around well-being was seeing how our entire experience is shaped in the moment - depending on how we are interpreting what is happening in our minds - a truth that came alive for me thanks to the brilliant guidance of Clare Dimond. It was simple, yet profound. Seeing the illusion of the separate self and the nature of thought completely changed how I understood life - and my reactions to it.
It opened the door to a whole new way of seeing - one where peace isn’t something we chase, but something we uncover when the noise settles.
That’s why understanding these three dimensions - The Absolute, The Relative, and The Illusory - is where we can finally begin to get real about what’s not real. In other words, they can help us understand why we feel the way we do.
The Absolute is that which never changes, without which we could not have any experience - and prior to all form. It is:
Consciousness
Intelligence
Aliveness
Beingness
- it our very existence.
The Absolute is the life that beats our hearts and makes every experience possible. As Rupert Sprira so simply explains: Consciousness is that with which all experience is known, within which everything arises, and out of which everything is made.
The Relative refers to everything that constantly changes in our mind based on what’s happening in our lives:
Thoughts
Feelings
Reactions
Situations
Behaviour
Other people
Beliefs
Circumstances
The body
These are always changing and always relative to what and how it is being perceived in the moment. The relative comes and goes, forever changing.
One day, you look at your children playing noisily and your heart bursts open with love and gratitude. Another day, you look at your children playing noisily and it fills you with the urge to send them straight to their rooms.
One day you think your workplace is such a kind, understanding and giving place to work - and then next day it looks like everyone is stabbing everyone in the back, nobody is working together and everyone is focused on their own agenda.
The Illusory is everything imagined. It includes everything that can never truly be real - it's like a mirage in the mind. It seems real, but when we take a closer look, it isn’t what it appears to be.
The Illusory includes:
-
The separate “self” (also called the Ego, personal identity, or thought-created self)
-
The Past
-
The Future
The separate "self" is the belief that has shaped humanity since Eve first bit into the apple and "fell from heaven" - the idea that there is somehow an independent entity inside our bodies that must control and manage life. But this separate self is, however, not who we are. It’s simply a story the mind tells, shaped by The Past: conditioning, by memory, by fear. It’s the mental image we spend our lives trying to protect, defend, or improve, even though it doesn’t exist in any fixed or solid way.
The Illusory also vividly appears in our thoughts about The Future - a future we can only imagine and never, ever actually know. It’s there when we dream about retirement, worry about where we will be in our career five years from now, or tell ourselves "My life would be so much better if only I had that job, that house, that partner, that baby…" All these thoughts project into a time we simply cannot predict or secure.
The Relative and the Illusory experiences feel so real, so incredibly vivid and compelling - yet, ultimately, they are creations of thought, all imagined. They are deeply human, part of our shared condition, but none of them define who we truly are.
So what is the reason why we suffer? It is simple, but so profound:
We try to secure the illusory (that which can never be true; the imagined) by seeking or resisting the relative (that which always changes depending on how it is being perceived through the lens of the person experiencing it) and in doing so, we completely veil (cover up) the absolute (that which never changes) which is the true essence of who we are and what we are ultimately all longing to experience as we know it from birth.
In other words, our true self is the Absolute - steady, whole, and untouched. But we live in the mind’s world, caught between the Illusory and the Relative.
So we search for what we think will make us feel whole; love, validation, a sense of belonging, or certainty.
OR we resist what we fear will make us feel unworthy; rejection, failure, or discomfort.
And the whole time we don’t realize that every single bit of it is learned. Underneath all that thinking, we are already whole.
When we can see clearly that the self we struggle to protect and defend is nothing but an imagined idea, a mirage, we naturally fall back into the peace and sanity of our true nature. This doesn't mean we stop thinking! We can't stop thinking, but we can become more conscious of the delusional nature of thought and the feelings that come with them. We do that by getting curious - by questioning whether they’re actually true..
And in that questoning, suffering gently dissolves, revealing the effortless wellbeing that’s been here all along.
Who would you be without the thought that says you are not enough?
The relative, when questioned, brings us back in touch with reality. Seeing this is the realm of healing, where old patterns can dissolve, where we can uncover our own conditioning and truly affect our responses to life.
You are already whole, you just think that you are not.
With love,
Suzanne
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Suzanne Lång
Professional Certified Coach
Conscious Coaching
Speaker / Facilitator
+46 702 45 71 45
sl@suzannelang.com
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