The Illusion of Reality - We Are More Than This

The physicists and the mystics are more in agreement now that ever before that reality is an illusion, a construct that is more energy than substance, more malleable than solid. Yet we feel we are trapped in this maya even though psychedelic drugs and meditation give us brief glimpses and inklings that we are more than this. But in our heart of hearts we know we are more than this.

Understanding why we find ourselves tenaciously treating an illusion as real is indeed an interesting question but it is only part of the puzzle. An even more important question for me has been “how can I feel fulfilled in my life regardless of my circumstances?” Understanding that what we call reality is a construct that I am in part responsible for creating, I believe, provides access to this feeling of fulfillment. I am in hopes that my words my help shed some light on this concept.

Other questions we need to address are "how did this situation (the illusion) come about?" and as much of a cliché as it is, "What is the meaning (purpose) of life?"

When I asked this question "what is the purpose of life?", it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that there is some grand plan or ultimate purpose for the existence of the universe. I believe however, as the existentialists have suggested, there is no grand purpose for life but that we give our own individual lives purpose by choosing to live them. In fact we have an opportunity every moment to declare in our lives to be what we choose to be and we can do this for absolutely no reason other than the fact that we have the power to create.

Held in this microcosm of creativity (each individual), in the absence of the need for any purpose or reason and in the presence of the ability to create from "what is" is manifested the same energy that we find in the macrocosm (all that is), the creation of which we attribute to God.

Alan Watts has given us a parable "Hide and Seek" in "the book..." which describes how the universe was created through will (The Word) and out of what is, the "one" consciousness that is all there is. What I understand from this is that we are this consciousness and that we have the power to create or recreate in every moment. And indeed this is what we do, consciously or unconsciously through our words and thoughts.

All that we experience is literally created in each moment by what we believe. In other words, reality is created in each moment by the "collective consciousness". Our belief makes everything (the illusion) reality. This includes all the mater in the universe and the laws we believe govern its behavior. This is the underlying message in the movie "What the bleep...".

Now tying this all together, it seems to me that most people believe that the universe is a threatening place that we are trapped in and that by struggle and in fear we stave off death and secure a tenuous refuge for ourselves until we die. In a world of conflict it is easy to believe we are powerless and to buy into this view of life, as depressing as it is, because it is predominately what is being created at every moment by the "collective consciousness" I spoke of.

My point here is that this so called reality is only the way it is because we believe it is and we are without power to change it. When we believe this, this is indeed what we get, both in our own lives and our own experience and collectively. Frank Zappa expressed this in one of his songs "do you love it, do you hate it, there it is the way you made it". Our experience that we have been cast out of the Garden of Eden is only a reality because we believe that this is what is the case.

I am convinced that the only real human failing is the failure to understand that we are the creators of the universe in which we live and that the purpose of life is not death or struggling or hopelessness. I also acknowledge that human consciousness is not the only consciousness or creative force at work in the universe. I believe that everything has a consciousness of sorts. For instance rocks have a kind of rock consciousness. The consensus of the collective consciousness is that rocks are hard and that is indeed how they occur to us. But we also believe that steel does not float yet through human creativity we have fashioned ships out of it! In this different paradigm that I am suggesting the universe is not what it is but what we make it. We are not victims but players.

To this end I have personally taken on revising my belief system to utilize my ability to create a universe that supports life, love and beauty. I do this not because it is right or wrong but simply for the reason that I have the ability and choose to create this even in the face of everything that I see that is telling me otherwise.

This is my quest for personal happiness in my life. Sharing with others what I have found is my contribution to changing the collective consciousness that creates this universe in every moment. This is my personal expression of life, love and beauty.

To complete, I believe the purpose of life is the expression of life itself, love in all forms and the appreciation of the beauty of all that is.

I have of course only scratched the surface in this brief dissertation about the awesome power of using personal consciousness to create the universe. What is that play here is universal and I believe that hidden within each of us is the knowledge that we have the power to create and the responsibility for what we have created. I believe the evidence for what I have discussed abounds. It is not only the focus of much of the Eastern philosophy which Alan Watts studied but also the central theme of the recent movie I referenced "what the bleep...".

One of the most coherent and concise treatments of this topic is found in the works of the mystic and Christian scientist Thomas Troward who gave a series of lectures in the early 1900s (which became books) the most famous of which is the Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science.

Thomas Troward asserts that this power to create is universal and there is plenty of evidence that it can work not only to create life, love and beauty but to create the antithesis of these. This is indeed a reasonable explanation for all the misery and suffering that exists around us. A close look at my own personal life has shown me that misuse of my personal power has caused me much anguish. I have now adopted the practice of asking myself if what I am about to do is an expression of life, love or beauty. If I cannot determine unequivocally that this is the case, this is my signal to rethink what I am about to do.