Awareness Through Movement #232

Minimal movements; lying on the side; begin the movements in imagination

“The beginning of our acquaintance with the outside world is not only sensory but is entirely subjective. For a long time we know only a sensorial subjective reality.
We are not, however, alone: always we are in communication with other human beings—parents, teachers, etc.

Without ever stopping to think about it,
we behave as if all these others share the same subjective reality as we.

There are as many subjective realities as there are subjects. The one thing that is common to all these subjective realities is the one reality we use in communicating with one another: the one “objective” reality for all of us. But, apart from this, there is obviously a third reality.

This is Reality—with a capital R—that is understood to exist whether you and I are alive or whether we know it or ignore it. This is the Reality which must exist and must be there, whether men exist or not.

When we use our thinking, and not only our sensing, we realize that this third Reality is more than likely the first. This Reality is immensely complex and is only very superficially known, either to science or philosophy or in music or poetry. But our sense of self-importance makes us believe that our subjective reality is just as valid.

The “objective” reality is, finally, that part of our subjective reality which we are willing to concede to our fellow men. I can see that you can see and that you can read, but I can never believe that you can see as I can, or understand what you read as I do, even though logic forces me to recognize I must be wrong and have no grounds for thinking in this way.

My subjective reality is mine entirely and follows all my whims. “Objective” reality is less whimsical: it is the reality experienced by all men. It limits and restricts your and my subjective reality to that upon which all others agree. Subjective reality is anchored in us and is as real as our bodies. Objective reality is the measure of our sanity. But Reality has never as yet been perceived in its entirety.

Our belief that we know Reality is an illusion, a maya; it is a measure of our ignorance.”

― Moshé Feldenkrais,
Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais