There is a common argument over whether or not people are products of their environment or are autonomous entities that are solely responsible for their actions. In actuality it is a combination of both. There are countless people, places and things in this world that effect the way we experience life, and thus effect our perception of reality. There can be no question to the fact that our environment plays a critical role in the way we see the world and our part in it. In many ways we become like unconscious actors playing predefined roles and generally going with the current script of things. In the midst of all this we have the ability to break free of our molds and apply our will to take a course of action of our own choosing and define our world with our own self created perceptions. Also, as I have discussed briefly, the ego mind is a conditioned part of the self created primarily through interaction with this man made society, and the parts of the psyche that most people identify with are those ego complexes and personalities. So, in effect most dwell on the environmentally created self. When we think about how our environment forms us we are usually looking at the surrounding atmosphere and the relative things in society that control our perceptions, be they various human interactions, social moral mandates, economic situations etc. These all play a crucial role in the way our worldview and personalities are shaped, but the conditioning we experience goes much deeper than that.

What is not normally accepted inside this idea of conditioned existance is that the mental programming we go through is not just our genetics or the church or neighborhood we grew up in. It is the sum total of every single thought, feeling, and emotion that every single human being has ever had that contributes to this web. We get caught in it. It is thick and sticky and has many layers. All of these ideas exist at some level inside the collective mind. To develope our real true self we have to be able to discern which thoughts arise from which patterns and precedents.Which ideas and feelings are based solely on taught or learned concepts and which are based on our own experience. What it ALL boils down to in the end is experience, first hand experience of life ... It is the truest teacher. In this way we build our own definitions and filters through which we process all of this information. In effect we are one grand filter created by overlaying the countless thoughts and perceptions of this web over the initial blueprint. By discernment we muddle through these filters (our beliefs, feelings, emotions etc) and what is left when the extranneous filters are abandoned is the set that makes the real you (the blueprint - or soul quality). In this way we create our own realities, because the perceptions and experiences we have are directly applicable to our paradigms or thought models, which inevitably are the deciding factors in how we come to know the world and ourselves, the set of filters that are in place. This brings me to the next point.

Imagine for a second that every person is represented by a piece of colored celophane, like the kind that go over stage lights. Inside this is contained every feeling and idea that the person holds. Now when you overlap these slightly the color darkens in the area common to both. This represents the overlapping ideas common to the seperate individuals, and so, in effect, those ideas are 'real' to both of those people. Now, when you overlap more and more those ideas are now concrete in the minds of the other filters as well. So, inside this darkened area exists what we call reality. It is the collected array of agreed upon ideas. Now this might sound to be to whimsical or arbitrary for the 'laws' we experience in the world, but consider that those ideas were instilled from the very inception of consciousness and it takes on a new meaning, and opens up alot of possibilities concerning the way we experience life and the way we relate to other people and ourselves. Thoughts are as real as any other thing and play an even more intricate role in the shaping of our world. Consider every thought that enters your mind and soon that mind will become the filter that controls its own reality.

The subjectivity of the one is also the objectivity of the ALL.

The observer affects the observed.