Your Thoughts Are Not Real

Your thoughts, and the stories they produce, are not real, simply because they come and go, and what is real—you, existing here now—is always present.

You thoughts may, however, be true.

You have a story—a collection of thoughts—to describe what you were doing in the hour before you read this. If your story is accurate, then it’s a true story. But no matter how true a story is—about what happened to you or someone else, or what you did yesterday or two weeks ago—it is still not real. It is just a story, a memory, and maybe even a fabrication, something you imagined to be true.

What is real is what is actually here, right now. It exists right now. It can be perceived by the senses right now—for example an event that is happening now, such as the sun shining through your window, or the rain pouring down outside, or an emotion or a sensation that you are feeling in this moment.

This level of reality, what is happening now, I call the “relative reality,” or the “small r” (as in lower case) reality. It is marked by the distinction that while it can be perceived by the senses—i.e. it can be seen, felt, touched, tasted, or smelled—it too, like thoughts and concepts themselves, changes, comes and goes.

In fact, when you really contemplate it, literally everything is governed by the law of change. Everything. Your body has changed. You’re older, you’re physically different; maybe you even have more lines and wrinkles on your face. You thoughts, sensations, feelings, and emotions are always changing. Even your beliefs change, unless you are inclined to fundamentalism, and adhere to a particular belief to the extent you take it as the gospel truth. Certainly your relationships and friendships have changed over the years. And circumstances and events are changing all the time…

So, is there anything that doesn’t change? Yes, there is one “thing” that doesn’t change, that is constant, timeless, and ever-present—in a word, changeless. And what is that? You. Who and what you most essentially are does not change. Or, more correctly, the awareness that you are, the awareness that you exist, does not change.