25. Life -An illusion or reality?

What is reality?

Truth or Reality is that which cannot be negated in time and that which is changeless in all states of our existence. It is independent as existence, and doesnt need support from another, for ‘it’s’ existence.  This is called ‘SAT’.

Unreality is something that simply cannot even be imagined to exist. For example -Horn for a rabbit. This is called ‘ASAT’.

An illusion is that which appears to exist, with the help of a hidden source. We can say, all effects, lie in its cause, as if cause is the source of effects and effects by themselves are only an expression of the cause, and has no existence in its own merit. Like brightness exists due to light. Nobody experiences light, we only experience brightness or the effects or its sensations or its expressions. Similarly, we say electricity exists based of its effects like shock, or torque or light and vibrations etc. So the effects cannot exist of its own self. Like water as mirage is not what it is, unless caused by light and heat and space.

So what exists ‘could’ be attributed as the expression of ‘life’ as source, by making its presence in the existential field as ‘appearance’,. So all of this is content to existence or knowing, that is dependent on aliveness or capacity to know, or simply ‘Life’. So knowing of content, appears to be solid 'content' to knowing, while actually it is simply its  'knowing' as if  content. So it exists as 'knowing' but behaves as 'content'. (to knowing). In a way, there is an existential deception. Deception is called ‘MITHYA’ or Illusion. It is and is not, as real. Meaning, it existes as a mental reality, rather than a physical reality. There are no physical realities, even though it seems to be. The dream, that we see in sleep, is a good example of an illusion. It is there as long as the dream lasts and then it disappears. It does not have a beginning, but seems to have an end when we wake up.

What is more bothering to the seeker, is the world in the waking state. It appears real, can be argued to be real, appears to have a feel of reality in time and space and a good example is our own body which we cannot deny as real. However, there seems to be enough arguments by the learned ones that this waking state world of objects, is as unreal as the dream state, as it is not independent of the know-er.

In other words, reality, which is the opposite of an illusion, must have a stamp of knowing that the source is not mistaken to be the appearance, or the source appears as the appearance, but it is known for its source. Like fire is known for its flame. Or light is known to be the mirage. At best an illusion can exist as an appearance of something more real.

In simpler words, a dream is an illusion, because it doesn’t exist in waking state and the contents of the waking state behave like a dream, for somebody who has actually lost the 'me-sense' to the body or his reference point, as a person to that body. In this case, there is only what is happening but not happening to anybody. Life seems to swing from waking illusory state to sleep, dream illusory state.

What exactly could be true and how is it possible to know or see through illusions if any – would be a seekers quest.

Let us start with a standard example – rope and the snake.

Assume a small piece of rope, lying across the street. There is a possibility  –like when the lighting is poor- that it could appear scary like a snake. There is also a possibility that it could appear like a look attractive like, say,  a flower garland or an ornament with some different light effect.

What will now play a role in the seeing of this object are – 1) knowledge of how a rope or snake or garland should be, memory of such image or concept, the fear or thrill associated with such a concept, the lighting around the rope to make the rope appear differently.

The rope can be seen as a rope ( sat), need not be noticed at all ( asat) or perceived as snake and run for cover or get attracted when perceived as an ornament or a garland.

The seer or assumed person does not have a role, to influence the seeing, in a pattern that would seem to be the result of seeing. The seeing itself would appear as real or unreal or an illusion. So ‘Maya’ or the power of memory and knowledge has a role to play, for seeing of objective reality and experiencing it. The object of seeing itself, can initially appear as snake or an ornament, which is knowledge as memory and is independent of the seer. This, then gets combined with the physical bodily sensation of scariness or happiness, to finally make the object seen as snake or ornament. In one case (snake), we run away due to fear and in the other case (ornament) we approach it with wonder.

In real life also, we see people getting attracted or repelled due to their appearance and knowledge of their personality or the concept one has about them, that makes or breaks relationships. 

All of the above are happening of one source. The source is called ‘life’ (or consciousness). It is life that creates forms,  enacts forms to appears as whatever, it also is the source of thoughts, which play the role of making meanings to the forms. It is also life that does the seeing, hearing, etc and the feeling of emotions to complete the conceptualisation. When this gets done, the illusion of the real world is played out.

Intuitively, if there is an understanding of  the play of consciousness, which, in a manner of speaking would be -consciousness trying to understand itself, then and only then, will there be a clarity, that all appearances are devoid of concepts in their appearance as such and are first and foremost only shapes and forms. It is also known that the illusion of thingness to forms, making them appear objective, is the power of knowledge or language. The veil of  ‘Maya’, associated with memory, thus gives the illusion sense of reality to name and form to convert them to ‘things’ and ‘persons’ and other objects.                         

But where we get stuck in analysis, is that we expect an illusion or reality, as either one, that could be there, at a given point of time. This is not true. “Maya’ or a magic comes into play to fulfil this requirement of both being true and untrue at the same time. It is more like to people seeing the rope, would see the same rope as snake to one and ornament to the other

What is true is that, all appearances in waking state and dream state are illusions. The illusion of time, belief’s and imaginations, give it an appearance of reality. So existence of simple forms sprinkled with ‘Maya’ gives it a meaning and this meaning has a way to be retained in memory and this memory with the capacity of imagination of its value in future,  is able to maintain the status of these forms as ‘independent’ existence of  objects in time.

Thus ‘Maya’ takes on the ‘concept’ as real objects. Like a ‘person’ to a human form. It forms the thingness of objects and forms. This creates separation as no two things would then seem the same. Each human form would be taken as independent life or person, even when it is clear that the operator of all forms is ‘life’ itself.  So the basis of separation is ‘Maya’. That separation is cause of split of  the illusion to make it feel a reality. It makes one body seemingly to have an entity called me. When this gets to feel real, the same magic works on all objects to make them feel as real as self entity.
So as long as the feel or sense of individual self or 'I' exists, the 'you' and 'other' will spurt up to make the illusion of wholeness to a collection of real objects.
So oneness, uses ‘Maya’, which has no substance of its own, but has the capacity to make all non substances to seem like made of real substance.
In the whole play of nature, the ignorance of man is in committing the error in seeing separation as a'fact'.. He is at the mercy of such seeing. The seeing itself will reflect as the seeing of separate objects or the seeing itself will appear as one whole illusion at a later stage. All there is- is ‘seeing’.
All appearances are true and unreal at the same time. So, for people who challenge the reality, there are enough arguments to prove their case and for persons who challenge the unreality, there are equal arguments for the same. Both are valid. It is life that appears as objects and life that appears as persons on both side of the argument. So all that is seen, is just a play of life ‘in’ life.

All there is to know, is that -there is only oneness or wholeness in which all is included or there is only energy as a knowing, which appears as everything or something or emptiness to each of us in a way ‘It’ decides.

An intuitive feel, that all that is seen is just one play of life –is enough to dissolve separation and bring about what we can call liberation, which was always the case and was un-noticed.