reflections_on_this_illusion daf So many of the mighty masters, the great teachers give us these words: This world is but a reflection, this life is an illusion. What DO they mean? Yes, it has become glaringly, painfully, invisibly obvious that there are phenomenon which my puny little brain will never be able to adequately explain, but what of the illusory nature of all that this body can see smell, taste, feel and hear? Where is this illusion, this reflection? What lies beyond the veil? Not HOW can it be demonstrated. Not where can its signs be viewed..for those are only ripples in the pool. These proofs to the conscious mind serve only as tantalizing illusions themselves, for by definition, if the mind can perceive of them through the senses, aren't they then, simply illusions? No there is a simpler, more straightforward meaning to this paradox. The great teachers knew something, and what they knew has such profound implications that they couldn't come straight out with it, but why? Is it that they couldn't put it into words? No, that's not it. It's been put into volumes and volumes of words. Books and books and libraries worth of words. Always though, instructions for how the blind might walk through the illusion and appear to the sighted as though they could see. Always how the children could walk among adults in a pseudo half-sleepwalk. Follow these rules, reach this way of thinking, bring yourself to regard that in this way. Where though is this leading? What is the nature of this illusion? Where is this maze headed and if it cannot be seen or explained outside of it's most esoteric definitions, how can it matter? Does it matter? Damn straight it matters. Not only that, but it can be explained. Thank the good Lord for moments of lucidity. Thank the one, the only God of all, for this glimpse of the reality behind the curtain. Thanks for letting this puny mind see behind the veil..for just one fleeting second. And now, for the trick..words to describe the deceptively simple: Matter does nothing. Matter is nothing. Matter is a puppet on the end of a whim. Matter is a dance of sand castles tossed along by the waves, the waves by the breeze, the breeze by ENERGY. We are the energy which moves this matter. We are the energy which creates this illusion. We are not the bodies that stare back at us in the mirror. That is the illusion. THAT is the reflection. We are that which moves those bodies and more than that, we are the ENERGY in emotion that creates the thoughts which move them. When we give in to desire, we are allowing the puppet to pull the strings. We allow the slave to drive the master. The desires, created by chemical interactions within a dirt brain, become the routers and diverters of electrical signals created by the spirit, that concentrated pool of energy which is WE..US..YOU and ME. This is all a big fat dead nothing without ENERGY, and the energy..the energy is all. No energy, nothing. No whirling electrons around nuclei, no lights to trip fantastic. The ENERGY is the reality, the dirt...is just energy that has been TRAPPED in a dead end. Around and around in circles it goes electrons around nuclei, moons around planets, planets around stars, stars around galaxies, forever pulling us in. Matter is the death of energy. Matter absorbs energy. Forever trapping the energy in endless repetitive circles. Forever working it's way to heavier and heavier elements that trap more and more electrons...more and more energy...more and more of US. In the core of the Earth? The heavy metals. In the core of the Sun? Heavier elements. The reaction of the Sun? Releases US..takes us from material and we are allowed a chance..a chance to avoid the trap. A chance to LIVE. The plants take US in and are ALIVE. They are our kin in this, but it doesn't stop there. On to the animals...the wild animals, the human animals. Our kin, alive because WE are in them. That's US...you and me across from you. That's YOU shooting out of that computer screen in the form of electrons..but to what end? Here then is the call of the Path. That ENERGY trapped in matter act, not as matter...but as ENERGY. Not pulling in, selfish, greedy, trapping, denying escape, denying freedom, thinking only of sucking more into itself. Not focused on itself and how to get what it wants. But as ENERGY, releasing, driving, giving, sharing, nourishing, sacrificing...we are energy and we are all. One light bulb gives all that you can see. One sound wave shares it's symphony with everything within miles. The heat of a fire warms all around it. Energy gives and shares and is one with everything around it. The eyes of God are upon you. Are you dirt? Or are you energy? Are you real? OR are you a reflection moved about by the real? Will you die as dirt? Or as living energy will you unlock the door to what YOU are and be what ultimately WE are? Alive! We are the LIFE in all LIFE...NOT THE DIRT! Will you be sucked into the illusion..or will you fight the reflection, becoming within the confines of the illusion what you are in reality? The driving force behind the illusion! The veil has been parted, the curtain is gone. Now what? 031118 ... daf "But what does that mean dad? I mean, we are light?!" My daughter was having a hard time getting her head around this idea. Perhaps it was a bit much to expect from a 13 year old, perhaps not. Parents have a responsibility to teach. This is my responsibility to my children, each to their own children, in their own way. So rolling up my sleeves, I headed down that unblazed trail and sought to find the words to answer her many questions. Perhaps we both learned a lot this morning. Perhaps I learned more than she did. Perhaps we'll all learn a bit from it. "You think you see my hand moving?", I said waving my hand in front of her face. "Yea," she said with a smirk. "Wrong, what you see is light being reflected off of my hand. Not only that, but you are seeing only a PORTION of that light. The rest is being absorbed by this hand." "Huh?" "Yea, this hand looks like nothing. It's the light that looks like something. Without light, you see nothing. Without energy, nothing. You wanna see what my hand REALLY looks like without light?" "Sure." "Close your eyes", she obliges, "that is what my hand looks like. Nothing." "Yea but I can feel it though!" "Guess again! What you are feeling are electrical impulses, energy, light that races up your arm to your brain. Wanna know what my hand feels like? Stick your fingers in ice water for an hour or so until they're numb. That's what matter feels like. Nothing." "So matter is nothing?" "Oh it's something alright, it's a trap for energy. You know what the model of an electron looks like right?" "Yea. Protons, neutrons, electrons." "That's matter, right?", I ask. "Yea. Right." "No. That's energy trapped. That's energy running in neverending circles. Kinda like your Dad, going back and forth from work to home. Kinda like watching professional sports. Over and over and over again. Like an illusion of something, that turns out to be nothing because it just starts over again. And the energy can't get out of that trap unless some more energy comes along and helps it get out." "Huh?" "Oh yea, and it takes a great deal of energy to set just one electron of energy free. But when it's free, it's very powerful. It can free more and they can free more. It can be a reaction, but FIRST, you have to have enough energy to get it started." "Cool. Like a nuclear explosion?" "Yea. There's an example. People that behave like the light that they are, instead of the dirt that their brain is made of and that their world seems to be made of, are another example. They add energy to get momentum going, momentum to change the people around them, to help free the light in them too." "Ok, I'm confused? What do WE have to do with light?" "You are a light love. You are not that body. You are not that brain, or those thoughts that run through it. That's all just dirt. Matter. It absorbs, implodes in on itself and takes. It is want want want. Mine is too. But US..we are light. We are what makes this matter move, we are the energy behind the illusion of life in this lifeless matter. It would be easy to demonstrate, except for one big problem.." "What's that?" "There is no way for you to show me what you are, other than through the matter that makes up your brain and your body. You have no other way of showing your true self to me. I have no way of knowing whether you are really light, or just more dirt. No way except by observing your thoughts, words, emotions and your ACTIONS. If you ACT like dirt, if you are greedy, self absorbed, dark, negative, taking and sucking the life and the joy from others, then you are, as far as anyone can tell, dirt. Because dirt takes and absorbs. Dirt wants more and more and more." "That wouldn't be good..and if I act like light?" "You ARE light. But if you can somehow fight past all of the urges and limitations of a dirt brain, and a dirt body and a dirt world and STILL behave like light..giving indiscriminately, without end, all you have to give? If you spread joy and contentment, going out from yourself instead of focusing on yourself, warming and lighting the way for others, well then love...there MUST be light within that dirt shell, because matter cannot behave like energy. Only energy behaves like energy. Then we know that we are looking at YOU, the light." "Woah! That is crazy! So what you mean is, this is all a trap?! And if we get stuck in the matter, we end up like those electrons?" "Like the electrons stuck around the nucleus, like the poor couple stuck in the city, like the Moon stuck in orbit around the Earth, like the Earth stuck around the Sun, like the Sun stuck around the galaxy. If you don't find a way out of this trap, if you cannot stay true to the light that is in you; you belong to matter and your energy will be trapped. The YOU in you, will be lost." "Riiight." "Jesus said, you are the light of the world. He didn't have science books. People back then didn't know about energy, or the nature of light. But he KNEW. He explained this the best he could with what he had to work with. Remember a song that went something like.. This little light of mine..?" She nods..and joins in. "I'm gunna let it shine.. This little light of mine I'm gunna let it shine. Hide it under a bushel..No!" "Exactly. This body and this brain is the bushel basket. It is the matter that tries to hide your light. Jesus told us that no man lights a light so that he can hide it under a bushel. You are light. You were not given this chance to live so that you could behave like dirt..you were given this chance to be alive, so that you could shine. So let it shine, baby girl." "I'll try dad. I'll really try." "Me too darlin...I really will, from now on...I'm going to be a light!" Shine people...let it shine. 031121 ... buddha "Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." 031121 ... Death_Queen Yuck. 040223 ... when the dogs do find her Oh that is so beautiful, it explains exactly what I felt inside. 040223 what's it to you? who go blather from