Ilusions

Richard Bach once wrote: "In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice."

When we simplify things, label them or what have you in order to save "time", do we not put ourselves willingly in an illusion? 

Isn`t it a bit boring having just a few boxes in which we place one thing or the other, forgetting it is only an illusion, something that was simplified in order to save "time" and "energy". It has  really nothing to do with the truth or the essence if you ponder it for a while, does it? How can we believe in knowing that which we call the truth, that which we call the essence, if we gave it up a long time ago. We invented words in order to communicate and in the process, we started to believe a symbol, or a word, actually is that which it represents. Isn`t it interesting? We lost the essence behind the word, replaced it with an illusion. Did we not communicate before the birth of words? Lets ponder that for a while....

And if that were not enough......

Len Blank put it best when he said: "We depend heavily upon our senses i.e. eyes, ears, skin, nose and tongue in responding and reacting to the world. Yet, they are extremely limited in giving us an accurate reading of what is truly happening. There are many examples of this, and if we look at how acute animals’ senses are, through mainly instinct, we can begin to realize the limitations we face by relying solely on our five senses. As a result of animals being instinctive, for the most part, they rely heavily upon their senses to react to and interpret their reality. However, humans having an intellect, often times make decisions based on the limited information their senses provide, the outcome of which frequently results in less then optimal choices with their accompanying negative consequences. Therefore, does it serve any of us to rely so completely on our five senses for making decisions, and frequently life-altering decisions? No, but what is the alternative? It has been said that the Intellect seeks solutions through fragmentation, whereas Consciousness seeks balance through wholeness. The senses, which the intellect interprets, actually provide at best only partial information to us, so the result is that frequently decisions are made in a fragmented way."

To summarize: we perceive the world around us through a filter. A filter of our five senses and the labels of our mind. We use them so that we can save "time" and "energy". We call that which we get through the filter, and what we label and what we simplify and reduce, we call it the reality. Is it not an illusion, that which is perceived through the egoic mind and the five senses? We call this perception our reality? We are even willing to argue, defend and die for our beliefs and illusions? Isn`t it a little bit funny, or maybe a little bit insane?

But we do all of those things so we can feel safe and so that we can live fast and efficient?

In other word we sacrificed our ability to perceive and feel the world around us as it really is.

Let us not forget about our programming that is done through the upbringing of our parents, that of course did their best, but still, maybe Don Miguel Ruitz put it best when he wrote: “I want you to imagine that you live on a planet where everyone has a skin disease. For thousands of years people have suffered the same disease. Their entire bodies are covered by wound that are infected, and they really hurt when you touch them. Of course people of this planet believe this is a normal physiology of the skin. Even the medical books describe this disease as a normal condition. When the people are born, their skin is healthy, but around three or four years of age, the first wounds start to appear. By the time they are teenagers, there are wounds all over their bodies. Can you imagine how these people are going to threat each other? In order to relate to one another they have to protect their wounds. They hardly ever touch each other`s skin, because it is too painful. If by accident you touch someone`s skin, it is so painful that right away that person gets angry and touches your skin, just to get even. Still the instinct of love is so strong that people on the planet pay a high price to have relationships with others. Can you imagine yourself with healthy skin in a world where everyone has a skin disease? You can not touch others because it hurts them, and no one touches you, because they make the assumption that it will hurt you.”

“If you can imagine this, perhaps you can understand someone from another planet, who came to visit us and would have a similar experience with humans." 

But it isn`t our skin that is diseased, it is the human mind that is sick with the disease called labeling. Labeling  produces blindness and blindness produces fear, doesn`t it? Being afraid of that which we can not see is very logical isn`t it? Fear is also based on illusions, on something that may or may not happen, but because we symplified everything, we can`t really be sure, can we? Because we do not see the essence, the truth, we actually have no idea what is really going on. We base our life decisions on illusions. we do not even ask our surroundings for feedback, to confirm that the illusion we have made is even a functional representation of the essence. We are so sure in our illusions that we judge, blame and even kill, yes even kill, before we ask questions, before we have even a shadow of a doubt. Isn`t that interesting? Fear produced by illusions has us doubting everything around us, except the illusion which is buy itself a doubtful entity. The manifestations of the disease caused by believing in the illusion of assumptions and fear are: anger, hate, sadness, envy and hypocrisy....thus the suffering.

Maybe some got tired of suffering and started to realize that the drama is not a natural part of a human beings life. So then what? Some start to avoid conflict, because they are in to "peace" and "understanding", they do not want to react (what about pondering the difference between action and reaction). But is not expressing ones self really a path to peace, or is it a path to inner tension? Tension that can actually be felt in a form of energy by others around that person. Because yes, feelings also produce energy, that can be felt the same as touch, just on a different level. It is like somebody had an invisible bubble around them, made out of energy. The polarity of the energy around an individual depends upon the predominant emotions that he or she is feeling at the time. And how we perceive that person  in one point in time has actually everything to do with that energy bubble and nothing to do with labels that we attach to them. And it is obvious isn`t it, the bubble changes polarity as our emotions and feeling change. So if we perceive one person as such and such one day, because he or she may be having a bad day, and we put a label of "he or she is a grumpy person", that becomes the way we actually "see" that person as a whole. It is quite obvious that  this has actually nothing to do with who that person truly is and everything to do with how we perceive that person. 

So, yes there we have it, another illusion is born! On top of everything, we are not actually going to be able to sense and see that individual in all the beauty and uniqueness that he or she really represents, thus we are not able to love. It makes sense, doesn`t it?

There is a deeper part, a deeper layer to every human, that is the essence of each individual. That witch does not get touched by the ego, or by all the labels. It is pure, it is so pure and bright, we can, for the sake of argument, call light itself. It is a part of us that has been there since we can remember. Even when we were very little, that part was there and it did not change through time. It is a constant, if there is such a thing,  that which we can call the essence. The essence shines through each and every one of us and the less illusions we have, the more it shines through.