By Prana Lite 
We live our daily lives convinced that the world outside exists independently of us. We see houses, trees, cars, people, and assume that these objects are there, whether or not we are aware of them. This belief, that there is an objective world existing apart from our experience, seems self-evident. But what happens if we question this assumption? What if the world we perceive doesn’t exist outside our awareness, but instead appears within it?
Perception as the Source of the World
Let’s start with a simple yet fundamental point: everything we know about the world, we know through perception. This means that what we call “the world” is always mediated through our senses. We see colors, hear sounds, feel textures, taste flavors, and smell scents. These sensory perceptions form the foundation of our experience of the world. But here’s the question: have we ever experienced the world directly, without the filter of our senses and thoughts?
Some might argue that our perception gives us reliable information about an objective reality. When we see a tree, surely that tree must exist, even if we are not looking at it. This seems logical, but let’s examine that assumption more closely. Ask yourself: What exactly am I experiencing when I look at a tree?
The answer is simple: you experience colors, shapes, and maybe a tactile sensation if you touch the tree. But colors and shapes are not properties of the tree itself; they are sensory impressions within your consciousness. What we are truly experiencing are sensory perceptions and the interpretations that our mind adds to them. The tree, as we know it, exists only in our perception.
What If We’re Mistaken?
Of course, we can place a critical footnote here: if the tree exists only in our perception, how do we explain that others can see the same tree? If you and I stand side by side looking at the same tree, it seems as though there is something that exists independently of both of us, something we can both perceive. This seems like a strong argument for the existence of an objective world. But let’s dig deeper.
When you and I look at the same tree, we are not having exactly the same experience. You see the tree from your perspective, and I see it from mine. Your experience is unique and inseparable from your consciousness, just as mine is for me. What we share is not the objective tree itself, but an agreement in our perceptions and language. We both say, “That’s a tree,” but the real tree remains forever locked within our individual experience. What we share is an idea, not an objective fact.
A Practical Example
Imagine walking down a busy street, surrounded by the sounds of cars, people, and music coming from shops. Everything feels concrete and real. But suppose you stop for a moment and focus on one particular sound, like a car passing by. At that moment, everything else but that sound fades from your awareness. It seems as though only that sound exists, and the rest of the world vanishes. If you then shift your attention to another sound, or to the feeling of your feet on the pavement, that experience takes over your entire perception.
This simple example shows how what we call “the world” constantly shifts depending on where we direct our attention. The objects and sounds may seem solid and fixed, but they appear and disappear depending on our perception. The world, as we experience it, is not fixed; it is fluid and dependent on our awareness.
The World as a Projection of the Mind
The next step in our exploration may feel slightly unsettling: if the world, as we experience it, is always dependent on our perception, what does this say about the existence of the world outside our perception? Here comes a potentially controversial thought: what if the world, as we know it, does not exist independently of our awareness but is instead a projection of our mind?
This might sound far-fetched. It seems as though we are completely discarding the idea of a world outside of us. But it’s worth investigating. The mind has five senses through which it perceives the world: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. These senses form our entire experience of what we call the external world. But if we are honest, we have never had access to the world without these senses. We know the world only as a collection of sensory impressions.
Some might argue that this perspective leads to a kind of solipsism, the idea that nothing exists outside of our own mind. This might make us think that the world and other people are mere fantasies of our own mind. But that’s not what is being proposed here. The world and other people appear in our awareness, but that doesn’t mean they are illusions. What is being suggested is that they do not have an existence independent of awareness. They are appearances within awareness, just as thoughts and emotions are.
Matter or Mind?
Here we reach a crucial point. What we typically call “matter”—the objects outside us that we consider solid and tangible—is nothing more than a series of sensory experiences. We never come into direct contact with matter itself, only with our perceptions of it. What we call “matter” is a concept the mind uses to organize these perceptions. But without awareness, these perceptions would not exist. Without the perceiver, there is no perception.
However, let’s not conclude too quickly that the world is merely a creation of the mind. There is something that underlies these perceptions, a kind of substance to experience. But what is this substance? If we strip away all sensory and mental attributes—colors, sounds, shapes, thoughts—what remains? This is what we can call “pure being” or “pure awareness.” This awareness is the foundation of all our experiences, the constant backdrop against which the changing world of senses and thoughts appears.
The Unity of Experience
All of this leads us to a profound, and perhaps unexpected, insight: the world we experience is not an independent reality outside of us, but a phenomenon within awareness. This raises an intriguing question: if everything we know happens through perception, what remains when we gradually strip away all those perceptions, all those experiences? What if we reduce everything we can perceive or think about—forms, colors, sounds, thoughts, emotions—to their essence?
This is not an abstract exercise, but a process we can explore in our own awareness. Imagine you start with a simple object, like a tree. First, you observe its visual features: the shape of the leaves, the bark, the light filtering through the branches. But what happens if you let go of all those visual features? What remains? Maybe you feel the texture of the bark under your hand, but what if that feeling also fades away? Then continue further: let go of the sounds around you, the thoughts about what the tree is or represents, one by one. What remains?
At some point, when all sensory impressions and mental associations have been released, something remains that cannot be perceived or grasped. This “something” is not an object, not a thought, not a feeling. It is not visible or audible, not tangible or smellable. And yet, it is. What remains is pure awareness itself, the intangible background in which all appearances arise and subside. This awareness is always present, though it is often overlooked, hidden behind the veil of our constant flow of experiences.
Now a subtle but fascinating question arises: if we remove this boundary between ourselves and the world, between the perceiver and the perceived, where does the perceiver end, and the world begin? If we discover that all experiences—whether external (the world) or internal (thoughts and feelings)—arise in the same way in our awareness, then the belief that we are a separate, autonomous ‘I’ begins to waver. What happens when this boundary, which we take for granted as our identity, starts to blur?
We don’t need to answer this question directly, as the process of exploring this boundary may be more important than arriving at a definitive conclusion. Rather than drawing a firm line between ourselves and the world, this discovery invites us to investigate further. What if the idea of an ‘I’ that exists independently of the world is merely a construct? What if the world and ourselves are two sides of the same coin—different expressions of the same awareness?
The dissolving of this boundary can be experienced as a deep sense of unity, in which the division between subject (the perceiver) and object (the world) disappears. But here, we can take a step back and ask: how does this relate to our daily life? Don’t we constantly experience ourselves as individuals, separate from the objects around us? And if that boundary truly dissolves, how does that fit into our everyday existence? These questions don’t offer easy answers, but it is precisely here that we find the invitation to continue exploring.
If we allow ourselves to be drawn by our intuition and experience in this direction, a new perspective on ourselves and the world may emerge. It might mean that the world we perceive is no longer a hard, fixed reality separate from our awareness, but rather a continuously shifting expression of the same field of experience. What does that say about our relationships, about the way we approach the world? And perhaps more importantly: what does it say about the deeper question of who or what we truly are?
Instead of offering definitive answers, this experience may inspire a deeper curiosity. What happens when we let go of the belief in a separate ‘I’? What if we no longer see the world as something outside of us, but as an ongoing dance of perceptions, feelings, and thoughts, all arising in the same space of awareness? This is not a concept to be understood, but a reality to be explored—one step, one experience at a time.
