“We live inside a huge novel. It becomes less and less necessary for the writer to give fictional content to his work. The fiction is already there. The task of the novelist is to invent reality.”
J.G. Ballard
Fiction VS reality: fiction is not necessarily a voluntary invention. It is made up of all the beliefs, projections, filters, interpretations, opinions, certainties or ignorance that establish a distance between oneself and reality. The novel is the gap between our inner lie and the truth. The novel is our imagination and our conditioning.
Dostoyevsky wrote in The Brothers Karamazov: “Above all, do not lie to yourself. He who lies to himself and listens to his own lie goes so far as to no longer distinguish the truth either in himself or around him; he loses therefore respect for oneself and others”
Spiritual teaching is in reality, in our ability to descend into matter and perceive the truth. This is not an escape into higher spiritual dimensions, nor the elaboration of New Age fantasies. No, it is being able to perceive reality in all its accuracy, its harshness and its nudity. It is being able to unravel the twists and turns of one’s inner functioning, breaking down the wall between oneself and reality.
The path to new consciousness is to create bridges between above and below, between spirit and matter. They are no longer separated. To invent reality is to perceive the truth of spirit in matter, it is to recognize the light illuminating the darkness of matter. Spiritual teaching is found in the flesh, in relationships, in the natural elements. Developing a fair and deep relationship with reality means diving into the material as much as possible.