Illusions

Suppose I told you that everything in life is nothing more than an illusion? Would you believe me if I told you that time and space do not exist? How about if I told you that the present and the future does not exist either? It is all an illusion. All that really exists is the past. You see, life is nothing more than the creation of the past. There is no present, no future. Those are illusions of the highest order. Perhaps you believe that my sanity is the real illusion. This may seem to you to be little more than the ravings of a madman. You just might be right. But what if you are wrong?

Let us take a look at a couple of items. Take the concept of good and bad. They are relative terms, thus they are illusory in nature. Nothing that happens has meaning, in and unto itself. Take a falling tree. By itself, it is meaningless. However, if you car happens to be under it, or you yourself, it now has serious meaning. However, you attach that meaning. To you, it is a terrible thing, unless of course, you cannot afford the car payments. Then maybe it is not so bad after all? Suppose you are the one under it. It may suck to be you but to someone who hates you, possibly the guy who cut down the tree, it may seem a joyous event. It all depends on your perspective. Thus, the falling of it has no concrete, indisputable meaning and is therefore, an illusion.

Okay, that is a weak argument, I admit. However, you cannot deny that good and bad are relative to both the situation and the person experiencing it. And just what is good and what is bad? They are feelings that we tether to an action or an event. Feelings are not constant. I am sure you have had a day where you felt really good about things. (It will not last long; it is simply an illusion.) Well, on that day, something unpleasant may happen to you but you take it in stride. On another day, the same stimuli, or something even less problematic, might produce a completely different reaction in you. The first time your spouse comes home in a bad mood, you might be a little tolerant. After all, everybody has bad days, right? However on the fourth, fifth or sixth day, your tolerance has been stretched and you really don’t care what he or she is ticked off about. All you care about is that you are tired of the mood. However, you are attaching the meaning (illusion) to it.

Then we have days when we are feeling like garbage. On that day, some minor thing may go wrong but you get highly upset, far more so than the situation warrants. Why? You are the victim of an illusion. In your mind, some bad thing has happened, putting you in a mood that is simply relative. Now something else happens and you attach the meaning of the illusion you are already experiencing. None of the acts have, by themselves, any meaning. You are just under the illusion that the problem is serious or minor, depending on which illusion you are experiencing at the time the stimuli occurs. So what is bad or good; what is the real difference?

Now we will look at the concept of space. What is space? It cannot be measured since it is theoretically infinite. However, the only space that physically matters is the space you presently occupy. All of the rest is merely an illusion. That is why placing walled mirrors in a room effectively makes the area look bigger. It isn’t bigger; it just looks that way. The space is simply an illusion. Besides having more to mow, what is the real difference between a back yard that is 60 feet long as opposed to one that is 30 feet long? Again, the only space that matters is that which you are occupying. The rest is an illusion. Whether it is 10 feet long or 50 feet long, it is just out there, like the illusory image in the mirror. Suppose you rent the space. How is that different from actually owning it? The space is the same; you are the same. If you “own” the land, you are under the illusion that somehow that land is yours. The land is the land. It is what it is. It is simply an illusion that it is your property. (Especially with our property tax structure.)

Let us take a look at other dimensions. When we think of infinity, we think linear. We go from point “A” towards point “B” and we keep on going. If I asked you to draw a line, it would likely go from left to right. However, infinity is not linear; it goes side to side and up and down and in directions we cannot even imagine. That becomes clear when you look at paranormal phenomena and hauntings. The spirit world need not be “there,” wherever “there” is. The spirit world may easily occupy the same space we do. Look at it as a different dimension. To try to make it easier to understand, think about radio waves or cellular waves. Every phone operates on its own frequency. Well, most of the time, anyway. Yet there is no limit to the number of frequencies there are and our space is never taken up by all of the signals that are flying around all of the time.

Why is this so? It is because they are in another dimension; they are not part of the physical world. Yes, they can be measured (like spirits) but they cannot be touched because they are not physical. Believe me, if they were, I would definitely get hit by one. Fortunately, (for me, anyway) they are not physical but they do exist all the same. Like a Windows program, the can be layered one atop the other. Remember, infinity is not linear. Take this concept a bit further. Heaven does not necessarily have to be up there and Hell does not have to be down there. It can all be right here. Because we don’t see them does not mean that they are not there anymore than cellular waves are not there. Perhaps we see spirits when there is a tear in the wall between dimensions or when they cross over into ours. Perhaps we even cross over into theirs. That most likely happens when we sleep. It is believed that spirits are most likely to communicate with us during sleep when the veil between the two dimensions is the thinnest.

There are many dimensions. We know of the physical world and the astral world. There has to be at least one level of the spirit world but the strong likelihood is that there are many different levels of the spirit world, different frequencies, if you will. How do we know this? There are those mediums that have the ability to communicate with the spirit world. It is hard for even the most skeptical to dispute that. Now, if you take a house that is occupied by more than one spirit, mediums have found that in many cases, the spirits are not aware of each other. For example, a spirit that dies in 1850 may not be aware of a spirit who died in 1903, even though both of them operate in the same house and at the same time. Is this because of the difference in the times in which they died? Perhaps it is because they are on different planes? These planes may not be created by time; it may have more to do with the spirits personal growth or its desire to stay hidden. Yet they, and us, exist at the same time. If that is true, it can be said that here is there and anywhere is everywhere. Take a piece of paper and write something in a light colored ink. Now take a red pen and write over that. Now take a black pen and write over that. All three colors are on the same page. They all exist but the more you write, the less obscure the earlier writing is. Such is the spirit world. It is there on the same piece of paper, so to speak. It exists just as the physical world exists and it does so at the same time as we do. Time is much the same way, as you will see.

Now let us take a look at the biggest illusion of all- time. Think about time. Time is not constant; time is not the same for everyone. Each individual has his own concept of time and that concept of time changes depending on what the person is doing and what circumstances he is under. Eight hours at work, for most people anyway, seems to last much longer than eight hours on your day off. Your average workweek may seem like a month while your vacation week seems like a day. Yet out of that entire workweek, you only worked for forty hours. All of the rest of that time was your own, so to speak. Yet those forty hours made the entire week seem long. Watch a TV program. If it is a good one, that hour flies by. If the show stinks, that hour is long. Look at a movie like Titanic. For some people, it went by fast. (My wife.) For others, they thought it would never end. (Me.) Times flies when you are having fun, right? Of course it does, it is only an illusion.

How is it that we can sometimes see into the past? People have reported seeing visions of events that took place many years ago. Is it a rift in time? Very possibly, but it is also possible that all of time exists at the same time. This is tricky. You saw above how dimensions can be superimposed. Suppose the same is true for time. Remember, time is simply a physical plane marking stick. It has no reason to exist outside of the physical realm. Suppose what happened 100 or 200 years ago is still happening right now, only in a different dimension. When you see a vision that appears to be from the past, you may simply be looking at what is happening right now in another dimension. Time is not linear. What has happened then can be happening now. Anytime is every time. Maybe our technology is simply growing to where it has already been, where it really is now. Look at “on demand” TV. We can see anything at any time. Perhaps as we are living right now, someone from what would be our future is watching us right now, thinking we are its past. And there are still more illusions.

Everyone accepts the idea that we have a past, a present and a future. That is simply not true. We have only our past; all else is an illusion. When you analyze it, you will see that the past is also an illusion. Now that I have made such a bold and seemingly ridiculous assertion, let me offer some examples to back them up. Let us look at the present. Logically, it cannot exist because the minute it exists, or better yet, the millisecond it exists, it is the past. Think about it, the second you have a thought, that thought is in the past. You have already had it by the time your brain analyzes that you are experiencing it. Thus, there is no present. How can there be if it is over before you acknowledge that you had it?

The future is also an illusion. Look at it this way. How many times have you found yourself preparing for work? (Everyday, it seems. That is another illusion.) You are standing in the bathroom, brushing your teeth, probably dreading the day ahead, and hoping your day goes fast. Of course, when that happens, you are wishing your life away but that is another story. It is not as bad as it seems because you are wishing away what is simply an illusion. Anyway, after experiencing some of your past, you find yourself standing in the same place that night, doing the same thing. What was your future is now your past and that is fitting because that is all it ever was to begin with. The following day, you will be doing the same thing. Not convinced yet? Here is a simple test you can do.

Sit down and look at your watch. Now, tell yourself that in two minutes, you are going to pinch yourself. Think about it; maybe even dread it. That is your future, a tiny bit of pain. Yes, pain is an illusion too. As the seconds tick away, the illusion of the future comes closer. Finally, two minutes pass and you pinch yourself. By the time your brain registers that little bit of pain, the act is in the past. The future is simply the past ready to be viewed. Haven’t you ever felt like you were doing little more than watching your life? Of course you have and of course, you are. During the Civil War, General John Buford once said that: It’s as if tomorrow has already happened and there is nothing you can do about it.” He was more right than he knew.

Think about a day in the future that you are dreading. Maybe it is a big meeting at work or perhaps some unpleasant medical procedure. Thinking about it really bothers you. Yet before you know it, it is in the past and you are relieved and soon, it is all but forget about it. There have been some many times in my life where I was upset thinking about going to work. Yet before I know it, the day is over and unless something major, good or bad, stood out about it, the day was soon forgotten, as if it never happened in the first place. Did it really happen? Sure it did. Well, at least the something did. That day was nothing more than an illusion. All of life is simply the creation of the past. And what of the past?

The past is for all intents and purposes, an illusion too. You can color your past anyway you like. You can analyze your past honestly, if you want. You can also make your past anyway you want it to be. There may be something in your past that you are ashamed of. Perhaps there was an incident where you failed to take some action and that made you feel like a coward. However, after years of beating yourself up about it, you decide to add a new interpretation to it. I wasn’t being a coward; I was showing great restraint. I was exhibiting wisdom. Now that you have assigned a new meaning to the incident, it no longer bothers you. In fact, it may become something you are proud of. After all, it was an illusion.

On top of that, you can completely fabricate events in your past and do so to the point where you truly believe them. Look at people who tell tall tales. It could be about a fish that was caught, it could be about a sporting event or just about anything else you can think of. You can easily convince yourself that what happened was exactly the way you told the story. In many cases, you could beat a lie detector. What you have done is create the past event. How is that difference between the real past and your fabricated past? Is there a difference at all? That is an arguable point.

So just what is real? Truthfully, nothing is real. You see, we are spirits, spirits that happen to be occupying physical bodies for a short time. We, as spiritual beings may simply be watching lives long ago forgotten. We may be playing roles. Eventually, we will return to being spirits. In that scenario, I picture death as being much like waking up from a dream. That sounds confusing when you think about how a dream lasts but seconds and life seems so long at times. However, a long lifetime is immeasurably short when compared to infinity. It is infinitely short. It is an illusion. What do you think, am I insane? Perhaps so, but keep in mind, sanity is an illusion also.

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