Life is an Illusion, Maya, a Dream – so say the Mystics
Anyone exploring what has been written about reality and spirituality comes across some form of “life is an illusion.” Given that most enlightened, awakened, nondual teachers agree on this, let’s look at seven ways we know it’s true from within the illusion.
1. Projection of the Past
We know we project the past onto the present. While we are capable of direct perception and knowing, our discursive mind’s preferred and default mode of knowing is comparing present experience and perception to something – something it “knows.”
The comparative mind knows nothing
Is “this is like this” knowing? Is “this reminds me of this” knowing? Knowing implies a sense of certainty. “This is like this” isn’t certainty, it’s an approximation and a relative approximation at that.
So, one way our world is an illusion, a dream, maya is that we are always interpreting and comparing present experience to the past. We are not seeing nor experiencing what is actually happening free of the filtering, comparative, memory mind.
2. Perception is Throttled
Our mind can’t process all the raw data it perceives. Our mind throttles perception, and only processes a small amount of data coming in.
Think of your skin. Your skin is an organ of perception. It is constantly being stimulated, Your clothes are always rubbing against it. Your skin is registering temperature 24/7. How aware are you of this 24/7 data? Certainly not at every moment in time. Our mind ignores this data unless we focus, or it’s extreme, or it’s a matter of survival.
So, life is an illusion, a dream, maya because we are not processing all data at any given moment. We are living in a selective, partial stream of data.
3. Our sensors are limited
Depending on how we measure light, the human eye can only perceive .0035% to 1% of the spectrum. We are predominantly visual animals. Fifty percent of our brains are involved in processing the 1%.
We’re blind to 99% of what’s happening. So, we’re living in an ephemeral reality, an opaqueness of transparency.
4. We fill in the blanks
What we see is full of holes. Our eyes can’t see everything in front of us, and the chemical reactions in the brain process visual input super, super fast for survival.
There are blind spots in our visual field, which the mind fills in by extrapolating what it sees. BTW, it does this all the time with what it “knows.”
Think of mistaking a stick for a snake. The body reacts before conscious or unconscious thought happens. It happens at a chemical-biological level before any involvement with what we would call consciousness occurs. The experience of fear happens a long, long time after the survival reaction. It may seem instantaneous to us, but in terms of neuro-processing, fear is so 14.6 nano, nanoseconds ago – and it takes a self for fear even to exist.
5. We never touch anything
That computer you’re tapping your fingers on, or that hair you’re running your fingers through – you’re not really touching them. The repelling force at the atomic level is so powerful that those atoms are not making contact.
We’re living in a simulator. Have you ever had the experience of sitting in a car that is not moving, but another car is and there is that moment of feeling and perceiving that the car you are in is moving? We live in a 24/7 world of that, but our minds tune it out and reverse the mirror. Even though we touch nothing, the data is still streaming in like we are and this profoundly influences our view of reality.
6. Our sense of self is constructed
Neuroscience and cognitive science report that our sense of self, the “me” in the dream, is constructed, made up, imagined, dreamed. We exist as a patchwork of memory traces, filled-in blanks, approximated and throttled data, and much more.
7. What the hell is real then?
All of this is great fun! We live in a riot and chaos of making something out of nothing! We make up crap all the time about people, us, events, and everything – and not just emotionally, or as beliefs and attitudes. Literally, we can’t believe anything we believe.
Eyewitness testimony has been proven to be unreliable, and yet, we continue to believe it. We, our constructed selves, need certainty, AND by God! we will have it, even if we have to fabricate it.
Life is an illusion, a dream, maya on many, many levels – and we haven’t even addressed how manifestation and appearance happen.
Where does this leave us?
All of this is just BS to the majority of people. It has no significance. The world is real. I am real. I know this because I’m here you idiot!
Well, that’s one perspective, one orientation.
And then there is openness and curiosity.
Even after experiencing the Absolute, things remain in the unconscious that are not necessarily clear. When we truly realize the Absolute, the things that remain obscure will arise on their own. You will experience them as some kind of lack of understanding, but not necessarily about the Absolute. The Absolute erases the primary illusion, that is, the illusion of who you are. But the Absolute does not erase attachments. These attachments are habitual and will have to work themselves out. But now the attachments are not supported by the illusion of what reality is and the illusion of who you are. Consciousness is like a spring, uncoiling as obscurations arise and are revealed, and the obscurations simply dissipate. The things that need to be worked out are parts of consciousness that are still somewhat compacted and need to be opened and relaxed. – Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery
P. S. and BTW
Have you read “My Stroke of Insight?” You can see the TED Talk here. How does the world look when the hemispheres in the brain aren’t “communicating as usual?” Surreal. Hear it from a neuroscientist.