The fact is that whilst I do not claim to be able to understand how the traditional Australians saw reality, I have been powerfully influenced by their insights and ideas.

These ideas have helped me to understand Jesus saying 'The Kingdom of God is within you' in a real way.

Just like primitive Christianity, the traditional Australian Aboriginal peoples were diverse and had differing world-views. Never the less, there are a number of key features common to many Aboriginal Cosmologies, and these hold keys to a plausible alternative to the standard Western paradigm.

Traditional Aboriginal perceptions of reality are some of the most ancient that have been maintained by humanity, and without wanting to inappropriately idealise everything about them, they do provide us with some of the best insights into a cosmology of Eden.

The Dreaming
 

The Inside Outside

Using the metaphor of Inside/Outside, the Aboriginal People of North Eastern Arnhem Land have a much more profound understanding of the nature of reality.

Even as I have an 'inside', an interior life, in addition to my 'outside' or exterior life, the concept of inside/outside, allows other an 'inside', as well as an 'outside' - in reality as well as theory. It is to allow what I see as 'outside' in the other to be a sign or
sacrament of something more.

This allows other than self a presence or awareness 'inside', a presence that can be shared corporately, where others can relate in the greater 'inside'. An awareness as well as merely something to be aware of, is an initial step in breaking free from dualism
and into a healthier way of experiencing reality.

The loss of sharing the greater inside can be understood in the story of the Fall. Subsequent to the Fall we do not normally share in the corporate inside, and we see only outside. In codifying our indivuation and our isolation, and ignoring the resolution
in the person of Christ, our Western dualistic awareness also ascribes 'inside' to self or our 'soul', and 'outside' to both our body as well as everything that is other than self. (even though its obvious that this isn't so).

A sharing on the Inside was a reality in the Primitive Church in the 'Fellowship of the Spirit' or 'Communion of Saints' and manifest sacramentally in the Eucharist and the 'Kiss of Peace'.  From an Aboriginal Christian perspective, the broad understanding of the Inside/Outside is taking advantage of the resolution achieved by Christ in the Redemption, and the outworking in the person of the Holy Spirit reconciliating all creation to God.
 

Corporate Awareness

Where the dominant paradigm stresses the individual, it will follow that a concept such as corporate awareness will appear as a fiction. However, if there is a coherent world-view that is not based on the individual, not on the part but on the whole,
corporate awareness will seem less mystical, and in fact would have to be the norm.
 
 

This is

'This is' is a gate from metaphor to reality.  Jesus, at the last supper said 'This is my body' and instituted the sacrament of the last supper.

Both Christian and Aboriginal cosmologies see a resolution of dualisms here.

Aboriginal Time

We have a lot of trouble with 'being' in the present.

To remember properly is to travel through time.

Person versus Thing

If we have an awareness that perceives thing, we will only know thing.

The most important thing in life is knowing person. We only need one type of knowing and that is the capacity to know person.
Everything we then see we will see as personal communication. We will see ideas to their source. We will see the meaning not just the form, we will see theinside, not just the outside.

Cause and Effect

There are however different but coherent ways of seeing the universe which do not rely on Newtonian 'cause and effect'.

Australian Aboriginal Cosmology, Berkeley's idealism, Jung's synchronicity, and quantum physics, all offer pointers to a different universe.