The Reiki Cafe 

Reality and illusion

Many say that the so called higher stuff such as the state of oneness, love, higher self, truth, compassion etc. are real and that the so called lower stuff such as the world of duality, hate, greed, ego etc. are unreal, illusion.

How can this be so?

Can you take the whole and divide it into real and unreal?

The whole must include everything. How can you say that half for everything is not included in everything, it is only an illusion, unreal? Is this not like saying that yin is real and yang is unreal or that hot is real and cold is unreal?

rich

Hi Rich
Perhaps it is the Higher stuff that is the illusion and that the lower stuff is reality (LOL)

Does not the concept of Illusion in the context it gets mentioned here, very much based on Eastern teachings.
If we apply western thought to eastern concepts, do they not then, at times get very over complicated and misunderstood.

The concept of illusion is perhaps very easy to understand, once you have the key, but difficult to explain to someone who dosn't.

Do any of us here have the key? or are we under the illusion that we have the key?

As our understanding of the concept grows so we see the illusions that are weaved into our lives unfold.

You ask can you take the whole and divide it into real and unreal?

I think (But don't know for sure) that you can.
Both sides are there, just as to the front of coin, there has to be a back. Just as to the lightside there is a dark side.
Recongnising, what we see as real is real and not illusion
is perhaps something like this elightenment thing that also gets mentioned (LOL)

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

David Hawkin's writings helped me to understand this concept. The "fallacy" is duality. There is only a continuum. Light......absence of light. Darkness does not truly exist as an entity of itself, an object, a reality.....it is only an absence of light. He uses an analogy of electrity and a light bulb. When the switch is flipped so there is no electricity, there is an absence of light. Ergo, we call it "darkness", when really it is just an absence of light. The construct of "darkness" as a separate object, is a manmade illusion/concept. Also, he says (my summary), that cold exists only as an absence of heat. It does not exist as an entity by itself (duality).

The difficulty for me is trying to use this concept in everyday life. Perhaps we are necessarily trapped in using duality just by being in concrete existence. Trying to remember the unity and divinity in people, and knowing all else as "unreal, false" allows us to see errors, threats, etc. in a nonjudgmental way (good/bad, etc).

Yet there is still the problem of how to react to "threats" , real and perceived, to our safety, at least in this existence (ego threats i.e. insults, provocations, abuse, are potentators of safety threats).

Also, the use of flip sided coins analogy, necessitating an "other" side, may be of a different category than the discussion of "reality". Coins are of this world.

These thoughts are predicated on the knowing that Reality is the God/Spirit.

Meanderings with an earth plane head cold........! (but I have had my java!)

Otoharo!

Rob, I am so glad to hear your words.

I can tell how I use these terms. All physicality is an illusion but while we are in it, it is very actual. So it is an actual world. Thus the actual world is only of use to us who live in it. Outside this illusion, is what we in my group call the REAL World. Our aim is to live in the real world all the time. It is similar as if we lived in a meditative state while going about life here. It is easier for me to do while living alone, going out there only to purchase goods and get copies of music sheets. My friend lives with a husband who can not yet move out of actuality nor desires to. So she is constantly bombarded with actuality energies. She solves this solely with reiki. This is how I know that Reiki is unlimited in power.

I keep asking people to define what they mean by the term illusion. You have explained how they can not tell me.
finality

So is the concept that a room in the dark is the same as a room in the light, only in the light can you see what is in the room?

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Otoharo!

Rich, your brain can not work out this puzzle because the brain itself is physical and can not recognize other than physical. If you will let your awareness of yourself slip down to your center of being, you will have a knowing that will answer your question for you.

As I have commented to Rob, all physicality is illusion. but we are more than our physicality. We are real in the part of us that is not physical. We learn to get in touch with this through meditation.

Since no one tells me what they mean by enlightenment. I have to assume that they mean when one arrives at the state where physicality no longer is a threat to them. They are aware of being other than illusion. Since I have experienced it all in the far distant past, I have experienced enlightenment obviously, but I do not know where to draw the line in my expeirence so I can announce that this is enlightenment. It is a word from a different dictionary from mine.

finality

Hi Finality
A lot of the problem with explaining what illusion is, is that everyone of us will have a different definition, At the end of the day they may all actually be saying/Thinking the same concept, but the use of language gets in the way in getting their explanation across.
Just my thoughts anyway.

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Finality
Please excuse me for having a small chuckle here.
Many years ago, one of my teachers was talking about elightenment (we were in a Physcology and personal development class).
We asked how do you know when some one is elightened?
The reply was "You know"
So we asked "Do you ask them?"
"If you do ask them and they say yes, then they arn't elightened but if they just smile at you, then who knows" was the reply (LOL).
I think elightement is a knowing that you get from several other knowings.
I think that your assumpations are not far from the truth, but each individual will know in their own way.
So sorry no answear to what your asking there, is there (LOL)

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Grrreat Question! Can have fun with that one!

Are you part psychic? Truly, I currently am trying to replace lightbulbs (ceiling fixures) in a cramped "powder room"!

Coincidental?!

Yes, it is dim in there! Hopefully nothing will be there that was not there before, and hopefully nothing will change position or shape!

Back to my ladder......

Rob, the issue is one of dictionary. In my dictionary there is no enlightenment, that is, there is no state that sets one apart like that. As a HEB, I of course had achieved all a human CAN acheive but at no time did we say anything about enlightenment. I have to assume that someone created a dictionary arbitarily wihtout defining the term.

finality

Rich,

/*\ Namaste :-}}

- yes, to the samsaric mind it all seems so real.

- that is the Illusion.

>:-}}

Reiki All Around,

All Blessings,

Firekeeper

rich,

Its all illusion.

In the words of someone I admire:

The game is rigged but play it for all its worth anyway.

:-)

Walk in beauty,
Rebecca

Here is an example to 'point' towards understanding illusion -

If you are sleeping and dream of yourself going through a dream situation, you (the dreamer) perhaps will experience all the associated emotions of the dream. Once you wake up, you (the dreamer) is no more real, neither are the emotions that the dreamer felt. For the 'awake' person, the dream and its 'dream-reality' was an illusion created by the mind.

Similarly, at a higher state of consciousness, this state of conscious world appears like an illusion.

For the dreamer, while the dream was going on, the dream reality was real.

For the 'awake', while this conscious worldly interaction is going on, this reality is real.

At each level of consciousness, the previous level becomes an illusion.

There are other rational ways to explain the illusion of the worldly state. For example, 'color' is perceived by the mind that interprets a 'specific' wave length of light as a 'specific' color. However, the color actually appears to be of the object perceived. (The perceived object only reflects the wave length - that gets interpreted by the brain as color). In reality, 'color' is an interpretation of the mind, and does not exist outside the mind.

Mind however, reacts to its own interpretation, creating its own reality, which, technically speaking, is nothing but illusion.

with love and peace,
Harsh

Rob, I know what enlightenment is. What I want to know is what it is to some one else. They seem to use language that I can not connect with, so I do not know what they are talking about specifically. Perhaps it is the same but it sounds different in someone's language.

finality

Rob, it has nothing to do with light. It is vibrational level that changes from actual to REal. I do not see any connection to light in that. There is light in the actual.

When I am being reiki with someone, I see the energy. There is usually a shadowy impression or even darkness before reiki flow brings light into it. But the shadow is not the same as light. Light changes it to a different vibration.

finality

Rob in the actual world, it would be so, that the room would be the same whether the light is on or not, because the light is not intrical with the room. The the world of light (vibration) dark is a different vibration from light, so a dark whatever would not be a light whatever.

finality

LOL
Hi Robin
Yes fun can be had with this one.
I wonder at times why if a room is exactly the same in the light as it is in the dark, why I keep walking into stuff that has been in the same place for years when there is no light in the room? (LOL).

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Otoharo!

Robin, I have been mulling over what you report. My perception of the actual world that people all call illusion is of a huge plane with all physicality in an hour-glass configuration. The horizontal would be the actual, the void would by the vertical hour glass configuration. The Real world which is what we call all that is not of the actual or illusary world, is a differnt dimension so one could not see them both at once. How can one demonstrate a dimension? One can live in one dimension and be aware of another dimension at the same time. Thus they would not be lying in any relation to each other. So to me there can not be a continuum.

On the other hand, since we can perceive both worlds we can choose in which to have our focus. If we allow ourselves to identify with the source of it all, we can be aware of Oneness. We are a part of the Source, so in that sense we are One with it all while at the same time having conconsiousness of what is actual adn feels itself separate.

finality

Hi Finality
Exactly.
I think that when we use the words Light and Dark when it comes to energy work (such as Reiki) That some will confuse the concept of Light and Dark in the real world with it.

To me it is very different.

Incidently, Did you know that astro physiscists are now saying that some 70% of the universe is made up of dark matter. without the dark matter in these proportions everything would fall apart and nothing would have evolved without it.

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Hi Finality
Once again exactly.
It is the use of language and each individuls understanding of it that gets in the way.

To me elightenment is a knowing, or as I stated earlier a series of knowings.
Perhaps even seeing and knowing what reality really is, or in other words seeing the illusions that everyone seems to create, including ourselves( before we learn not to create them) are just that, Illusions.

Namaste

Rob
Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Robin
Thank You, very well said!

But still just because darkness is not a noun does that make it unreal?

Is sleep real or just the absence of being awake???? LOL!!

I guess that the light dark thing is just an analogy anyway not to be challenged the way I just did, LOL
rich

finality,

I never believed that the physical is unreal, illusion.

I think it is real. The non physical is real as well.

In oneness all is real.
In duality some parts of the one seem unreal.

rich

Rebecca

ALL is unreal??
There is nothing real in any dimension anywhere??
All of existence and nonexistence is unreal??????

rich

Harsh,

You are a person of knowledge and insight!

But who is to say that the dream is not real in its own way?

You wrote,
“Similarly, at a higher state of consciousness, this state of conscious world appears like an illusion”

yes, APPEARS, but is it really??
I say that every level is just as real as every other level.

rich

rich,

something is real?

Walk in beauty,
Rebecca