Illusions

Perspective — Illusion. It’s what this world is all about. Everything is actually hidden. The “revealed” is just a perspective  but it may not even be there at all. The “hidden” is often revealed even when nobody else can see it! That that does not exist, may well exist. That that does exist may well not.

Those who study astronomy know well that many of the stars in our sky do not exist. They haven’t for many years – yet we see them with our own eyes thinking that they do exist. The lights from those stars have taken so long to reach us that by the time they do – the stars themselves have already disappeared! But we think they are real – as if we could touch them.

We live in a world of illusion. A world of perspective. It all depends on how we see things. But no two people see the same thing in exactly the same way. This is why there is war. People cannot believe that others can see life differently to the way they do. They become angry at us for our way of thinking. In fact, everything is the same for everybody – but because of our natures, our souls and the way we are created – every person sees life through his his own eyes. While one sees the number 9 – the other sees a 6. This is because they are on opposite sides of the number. If they would only be prepared to change sides for a moment, they would see things just like the other. But instead, they choose to argue and to fight.

Then there’s the photographer who can take an image of a small pool, and with just a simple change in perspective, can make it look as though it’s an Olympic size swimming pool. 

This is what the media do to us – inciting the hatred amongst us. They do this to make us feel jealousy towards each other. It’s not just the media. In today’s times, every one of us has become a mini media all to ourselves, broadcasting to the world from our own tiny perspective – but making things look like that Olympic size swimming pool. When others see the image, they think to themselves this is indeed what it is. It is this that creates war and strife as each person thinks things to be the way they seem to look for them.

But after all, that star is already long gone! What looks so shiny is just an illusion. It is not even there.

In today’s times the world of virtual reality has opened up. One can simply put on one’s “goggles” and begin to enter a world – that does not exist! But it is so great, that within just a moment, one will begin to believe that this is indeed a real world.

This is not a blog to make fun of people. It is a blog to teach and to learn from everything we see – just as the Baal Shem Tov taught us – that everything we see is a message from God teaching us something. We must open our eyes to learn the lesson that God is teaching us. So many say that they do not see God. Where is He? Yet, there He is (one can always say “here He is!”) – revealing Himself all the time – if only one will open one’s eyes! But – the non-believer says, if I cannot see God, then He obviously isn’t there. Just like they will tell you that a star that has long gone and no longer exists actually is there… a world of illusion yet again. If a dead star can impersonate a light… a hidden God can surely reveal Himself constantly – if we only open our eyes to see Him.

This man in the video clip thought to try a virtual roller coaster. It is far safer than a real one. He surely would not have a problem of falling off it if something went wrong… or maybe not! To him, as he wears his “magic glasses” that turn the non-existent into reality – he is actually there. The car he is in is actually moving. It is a scary ride! If the graphics he is watching would indicate his car falling off the tracks, he may well have a heart-attack in “mid-air” though to everyone else around him it is just fun! He has lost track of reality because he thinks that the magic glasses have actually turned non-reality into reality. To him, his ride is real – even though every person standing nearby knows well just how crazy he looks. (And after all, why indeed is he making such a noise?!) To those who do not even understand virtual reality – this man may well be classified as mad! But because we know what is happening from the outside, we can also understand what he is going through from his perspective…

In the video above, some pranksters have decided to prepare an invisible rope to see how people will react. Amazingly – most people imagine the rope to be there, even though it isn’t. Some will even try to hold on to it as they climb over it. Cars will stop and wait for the rope to be removed before continuing on the journey. They do this because they imagine that there is a rope there. There is none. But the actors have done such a great job to make out that it is there… that it certainly must be! This also shares with us the concept of how many will trick us in life with “ropes” that are not really there. It is the illusion that keeps them going with their success, as the “observer” is fooled into thinking that the “magician” has really worked wonders and the situation really is at it seems…

Is it three – or is it four? Perhaps it is even neither! Perhaps when we take another look, we will see that it is just a squiggle. There are no rods there at all… But until we are able to see that things are not always what they seem, we will be stuck in our own way of thinking, imagining that everything we think must be the absolute truth!

What do you see in the picture above? Do you see the shepherd boy with his sheep? There are a couple of trees and some old thatch roof huts. Isn’t that what this picture is? And yet, you may say I am wrong! It is a picture of a man’s face. The man has a moustache and he is looking towards the trunk of a tree. Indeed there are sheep but there is certainly no shepherd. Who is right? What is this picture? It is both. It can even be more. But it will not be more until we are all prepared to realise that while something may seem to be a certain way, it is by no means what it seems.

We live in a hidden world too. God has hidden Himself in all of creation. Just as we shift our eyes in the picture above in order to see the image which doesn’t seem to be there, so too must we constantly shift our eyes to be able to see God who apparently is not there either! 

But who is right? We can all be right – because the Infinite God has created a world of illusion. It is not really even here altogether. Though taxes are real and one must eat food in order to survive etc. the basis of life as we know it is an illusion. Each of us is born with a set of eyes that is set to see life in a certain way. But we can easily be swayed into thinking that things that do not exist do, and things that exist don’t. It is  a frightening set of variables to work with.

We must be cautious as we progress through life to realise that life is really a set of “magic glasses” that we wear to make us imagine life to be a certain way, but when those glasses are removed, we will see that it was only an illusion that made us imagine that life was what we thought it was.

When we enter this world, our souls are enclothed in a body. This body is the ultimate in “magic glasses” that makes us think that we are seeing life for what it is. Our duty in the world is to make lots of money! We must purchase many homes, holiday homes and homes to rent for more money. We must buy cars. We must have a caravan car – a mobile home – for the long weekend holidays. We must have a sports car for the short weekend holidays. We must have a family car so that we can travel together whenever we need to. We must have the most powerful motorcycle – so that we can travel on our own! We must strive for a private yacht and our own personal airplane with all the bells and whistles! We must constantly attend to the cosmetic necessities we need so that our faces and bodies always look pretty much like as smooth and beautiful as on the day we were born. This is what life is… says that optical illusion magic set of virtual reality glasses called the body.

But the soul knows better. It is like the man seated in the non-moving car before he puts on his VR glasses. Then he knows what is real and what is not. If he will only be given a drill about the fact that he should not panic and worry when it seems like the roller coaster is whizzing around corners, it will help him to refrain from screaming all the time! He is in safe hands! He has even paid for his ride which he knows to be quite safe!

Just before the soul enters this world, God drills the soul with a similar message. He tells it that when it “lands” in the physical world, there will be many illusions around. There will be many perspectives around. Then there will be a book left in the world for the soul to spend its entire life studying. It will need a lifetime to learn it, because it is infinite in its scope. It is written by the One who is placing the soul into this world of illusion. When one studies it, one will know the direction to take. One will be able to identify the illusions of life in order to work through them – not to be completely overtaken by the scares they call out.

The soul will indeed spend its entire life trying to work out which parts of life are real and which part are just illusions. But much like we see more and more of how easy it is to fall prey to illusions that do not really exist, so too it will be when the soul will leave this world. It will carry with it a weight of things it had thought to be real. There is just no way for life to have been otherwise.

But then, the soul will turn around, and it will look back at the path it had been on and everything that it went through – every obstacle and hurdle it encountered – and it will see that on that side as it looks back again, there is nothing at all. It was all an illusion.