Illusions
Question: What are illusions and how do they impact our lives and our ability to grow into our true nature?
Answer: Illusions are something we believe we see, but they are not real. When it comes to the illusions that limit our lives, they are the product of an unconscious relationship we have with images (of past events) stored away in our own minds and hearts that condition the way in which we experience our lives. These illusions -- our unsuspected relationship with them, and the conditions they create in our lives -- do not serve us. They serve the interest of the society from which these images (and their illusions) have sprung.
The life of illusion is the story of humankind, and its deception grows stronger every day -- causing most people to fall into a deeper and deeper spiritual slumber. As a result, individuals are no longer in command of their own lives. They are ruled by their habitual reactions to events that run counter to the images of security, happiness, etc. to which they have become attached and dependent upon. As a result of this resistance to life's constant changes, life becomes a never-ending struggle where the illusion of security is threatened by the illusion of its loss! Let's look at a simple example:
Let's say we see someone we know talking to somebody, and suddenly we're pretty sure that they're talking about us. Then, our mind forms an image of this conspiracy based on some (usually) painful experience of a similar past event, and we are gone! We find ourselves the captive of our own idea about what is happening, followed by those negative emotional reactions that then rule us (and wreck the rest of our relationships). Now multiply this simplest of social conditions by six billion people, add the kind of horrific events that cause global conflict and fears, and it isn't hard to see how our present day world is the unhappy effect of living in illusion. And, when we mechanically fight with these negative effects, we strengthen that which produces those illusions; so that instead of getting to the heart of the illusion, and canceling it at its core -- which is the only chance we have to be free -- we actually participate in making ourselves prisoners of further illusion. Yet, to be able to see the truth of this negative spiral is a highly positive thing for us. It awakens in us the real need to free ourselves of the false self that is the king of illusions!
Real spiritual work, real spiritual development is not the sense of pleasure that comes when we imagine ourselves being free or new. Real spiritual work is seeing through the need to imagine who we are at all. And as we realize this truth, and do the interior work to give up that image-dependent self, we also let go of its principle illusion: a time to come in which we will be what we imagine is necessary to be whole and happy.
Question: How is it that we are deceived by illusions created by our own minds? How do we put a stop to it?
Answer: When you go see a performing illusionist, and he is manipulating the conditions, the scenery, and you participate in what he does -- knowing that he can make your mind see certain things -- then you are taking part in the illusion. For an illusion to take place, there has to be two parties involved. One is outside of you: the activity of the illusionist himself. The other is within you, the "self" that is deceived by the illusion through having "cooperated" with the fun in that deception.
But who, or what, is the "illusionist" living inside of us? This is "a horse of a different color"! It's one thing to have somebody use his craft, her skill, to direct your attention to something so that when they're done you think something fantastic or impossible has happened; but it's another thing when, right within you, there is something that tells you, shows you something that it says is real but that is not!
Have there have been times in your life when you were absolutely sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that what you were thinking about, going through, was real beyond any question? Have you ever gone into a sheer panic because you lost your keys? In the moment where you lose something, do you think that the anxiety and the fear are proportionate to the loss of the key? Or is there something much greater going on?
It's pretty clear: something inside of us -- an "illusionist" -- shows us that which it says is real but which we recognize later is not real at all. Who is it inside of us that takes what isn't real as being real in those moments? I look out and I see a situation, or I see a person, and in that moment I'm convinced that I know the truth about it. Have you ever judged someone incorrectly? You look and you know. You know for sure, because you're looking at something that has been produced in your mind that gives you a picture of the whole thing. You know everything about that person.
Now, what is it at work within us that creates the image, and -- more important to the whole of our discussion -- who is it that believes that what is illusory is real? It's one thing to be tricked by an illusionist; it's another thing to have something in our own mind produce an image that isn't real, and then, for our identification with that image, to become "someone" that isn't real.
That's what it means to be deluded. We are deluded when we believe something that isn't real is real. But, within us, "who" is the illusionist? And "who" is being deluded? The point, and we mustn't miss it, is that they are one and the same! And we can be sure that whenever we are negative, frightened, worried, anxious, fearful, it's because we have bought into the "illusionist's" dark and deceptive works. To know this, even sense its truth, begins to set us free. Here's how it works:
The next time you catch yourself going into the past and reliving some regret, fearing the future, or painfully judging other people, know that this condition that has you (temporarily) captive is nothing but the work of the "illusionist." How else can we judge someone unless we first see in our mind's eye that which something in us just "knows" isn't right? And when we're filled with such false righteousness, the giveaway clue -- that it's we who are in the wrong -- is that we are negative.
This self-righteous self -- that knows that the other person is all wrong -- is the work of the "illusionist." To know this (as being true) is to stop giving ourselves over to seeing life through its lying eyes. We drop our relationship with the parts of us that would punish another even as it punishes us. We don't try to imagine a better way to be, we don't try to fix ourselves or any one else. The only thing we do is see that the "illusionist" has been having its way within us, and we end our relationship with it on the spot!
The image-making nature and the self it spins out in us runs deep, and in the dark, but that's all right. Why? Because the Light exists! If you find yourself momentarily a captive of the "illusionist's" dark work, in that moment choose the path of self-illumination: remember your intention and bring your attention to bear on what you now see as being true. You will see that as you work like this, the Light will be gradually, but surely, dismiss the works of the dark "illusionist." And as the illusion fades into nothingness, goes with it the problems and the pain that are its unnatural offspring.
