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Reality is what we perceive to be real, there is no underlying true reality that exists independently of perception. The only way we are capable of knowing reality is through the mediation of our consciousness – that is, subjectively. We experience our own consciousness directly, but we cannot directly experience the consciousness of someone else. We can only infer their consciousness from their behaviors. Conceptual thought begins from the pure, unsupported apprehension of one’s conscious self as an existential reality: the ba of ancient Egypt, the psyche of the Greeks, the Golden Flower of the Tao.

Plato developed a two-layer view of reality, the World of Becoming and the World of Being. The World of Becoming is the physical world we perceive through our senses. This world is always in movement, always changing. The World of Being is the world of forms, or ideas, the Platonic First Forms, and the Egyptian Neteru. It is absolute, independent, and transcendent. The World of Being never changes and yet causes the essential nature of things we perceive in the world of Becoming.