Reification!
meaning;
- to convert into or regard as a concrete thing:
-to reify a concept or idea [philosophical].
The instinctual reification impulse [subconscious] has evolutionary and survival values which is inherited from our evolutionary ancestors from billion of years ago. Thus the reification is so primal, instinctual and spontaneous at the subliminal [subconscious] level.
Such reification comes in degrees from low to high.
The Abrahamic believers has a high degree of propensity to reify, i.e. reifying the idea of God as ‘something’ that exists within empirical-rational reality.
The pantheists who believe in Brahman also has the tendency to reify but that is in very low degrees.
When a person is in bondage to the reification impulse without understanding and mindful of it tentacles, that person is not totally free. This is why some theists will kill when their God is criticized and some will get irritated, offensive, snarky and condemned those who critique the idea of God [note personal experiences here].
Note the tetralemma of Buddhism I mentioned above, it represent total freedom, i.e.
A - reifying
Not-A - non-reifying
Both A and Not-A - both reifying and non-refying
Neither A nor Not-A - total freedom from the above
Both refying and non-reifying has it pros and cons and thus we need them both, but at some time we have to be detached from them, i.e. emptiness or nothingness.
Note Bruce Lee’s ‘fighting without fighting’ or Wu Wei - action without action, etc.
Because the idea of Brahman still has the minutest remnants of reification I gave it up when I understoodd and realized the truth of non-reification within Buddhism’s view and practice.
Note the reification impulse is so strong within the psyche that even many Buddhists also reify that ‘something’, e.g. Buddha Nature, Store Consciousness, Alan Watts’ ‘God’ etc. but these reifications are not as ‘concrete’ as the concretizing the idea of God of the theists.
Note, don’t attribute ‘nihilism’ or ‘solipism’ to me.
In my case I am ‘entangled’ and interact with reality in one perspective while detached [not disentangled] in another perspective.