What we see with our eyes is so persuasive, so overwhelming it is difficult to recognize the illusion, difficult if we function with sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste to acknowledge the things we see, hear, smell, taste and touch are merely illusions, difficult to go beyond things on the physical plane and grasp their temporary nature. The physical plane is hypnotic, its effect is magnetic, it pulls us in inducing a condition which keeps us from seeing it for what it is. It sparkles, makes a noise, produces sound, it does things which affect us physically.
In a sense we have to protect ourself from interacting with the physical world; if we are not prepared for what we encounter we are not ready to deal with it. When people grew their own food in earlier times they had to be ready for the physical reality of storms, heat, drought and rain, or they would not have had food to eat. This meant constant interaction with the world. How do we tell someone the grain they grow is illusion when they need this food to live, to survive?
The world gives us so many reasons to believe in its reality we are overcome just thinking about it, trapped and snared into thinking it is real. Also persuasive are the actions of other people we observe, they deal with the world as though it were real, their emotions are invested there. How do we deal with a world which is not real when people fight or struggle to get what they can from it, even though wise men insist it is not real? How do we develop the understanding that it is not real and yet we have to deal with it at the same time? This is the duality of existence, difficult to understand but a necessary understanding if we want to penetrate reality.
Most people cannot believe in what they do not see, cannot understand what they cannot grasp, and inevitably what they cannot understand does not exist for them. Some however, do have faith in things they do not understand, have faith in things they do not see because they realize their own limits. One problem which arises in the understanding of duality is recognizing our limits: only those who understand how much we do not know have some idea of all there is to know. For those who think they know, there is nothing left to learn, they are satisfied.
There is a small group who are not satisfied, who have an empty feeling after looking at all the things of the world. They still ask, “Who am I?” Now most people are more likely to ask, “Where am I going this evening?” “What am I having for dinner?” “What stock will make me money?” These are the questions in their consciousness they want answered, and they read The New York Times to find the plays, concerts and exhibits to see, the current events to talk about with people who have nothing else to talk about. Although yesterday’s newspaper is used to wrap the fish today, this is not part of most people’s consciousness. Just because no one reads yesterday’s newspaper does not stop us from reading today’s, it does not stop us from commenting and talking about it, treating it as though it had importance. Here we have all the dramas of the world, all the dramas of our life, culturally, nationally and internationally.
Different people need different levels of drama; those who are pulled and pushed by their minds or their emotions think they are dead without the drama. When things are quiet, if they have only an outer life and no inner life, if there is nothing external to do they have no life, they have to make it up. How do they do that? With dramas like a soap opera going on day after day. We watch a soap opera for the unfinished drama inviting us to look again for the next installment.
We do the same thing in our own life as we are enmeshed in the unfinished dramas we do not end, do not care to play out or we will have to make up another one to take its place. Many marriages are dramatic and volatile, something can erupt at any moment to bring the drama to life. In the marriage drama we have someone to be angry with, someone to reconcile with, someone to stimulate all the emotions which make us feel alive. Those who bring peace to situations are rare, those who can dispense with the drama are rare. Few individuals understand that when the drama goes away, when the emotions go away, when the need for sensory stimulus goes away there is grace and a glory beyond anything else.
Most of us are so layered in our dramas, drama in the sense of touch, in relationships, in emotions, there is no way we can penetrate all that, it is too dense, an avalanche we cannot dig out from, we need someone to bring in heavy machinery. Not many of us have the machinery for this avalanche, only a few. Most of us do not know we are buried in an avalanche because we are still breathing—we know we would have trouble breathing in an avalanche—only then do we know we are in trouble. As long as we are still breathing we do not recognize the trouble.
If we do not know we are in trouble, if we think there is a resolution to our drama, an end which will take us somewhere else, we are mistaken. Only with the experience of so many years looking at all the dramas will we realize there are no resolutions. The thrill is in the drama, the chase, the emotional roller coaster ends when we seemingly succeed. We get what we have strived for but do not know what to do with it, we have spent such a long time trying to get it, and now we do not know what to do with it. This kind of disappointment is sometimes called depression.
There is no cure for the drama or the obsessions of a world which offers no way out. It can only give us what it has, and all that it has is illusion. As long as we pay homage to the world and its illusions we are subject to it, ruled by it. The only way to escape is by giving homage to something else, making something else our priority, changing our focus, working on the inner transformation, finding contentment with something other than the world. We need to turn away from the world yet maintain our equilibrium there, turn away from the world yet work responsibly there.
We have to exist in two worlds simultaneously, only then is the paradox of our reality accounted for, only then is the truth available. The religions of the world are no different from any other illusion, they separate people, they say mine and yours, they say praise and blame, higher and lower. There is neither praise nor blame in reality, there is only truth, no mine and yours, there is only His in every circumstance. There are no differences between you and me in reality, no differences between my God and your God. God is One. When we create differences we are reacting as the world reacts, when we pull away from it we begin our repose in the truth.
There is a universal connection among us, we are made of the same things, we came from the same place, we return to the same place. We are only here for an interlude, a four bar break which has become our reality. We need to learn the difference between this interlude and eternity, then treat the interlude appropriately. The notes of the interlude still have to be played correctly, but they are not the song, not all of it, they are merely part of it. Understand the part which is the world and the part which has no praise or blame. God is a beggar to a beggar and a king to a king. Whether we are beggars or kings the world is still an illusion, God is the same to us no matter our position, rank or status, they hardly matter if we are at peace, the peace which takes us to truth.
We must learn to focus correctly and stay in that focus, not letting ourself be pushed and pulled, not letting the drama and mania of the world catch us. We have to be demagnetized, pass through a chamber altering our structure so that we are no longer magnetized, no longer hypnotized. This is the chamber of faith, certitude and determination, a chamber which knows that truth belongs to Him, obedience belongs to Him. To become who we truly are we surrender to that power controlling everything, a power both unseen and inexplicable. Believe we came from this power, we return to this power; everything exists in the right place, in the right way. May the peace of this understanding fill each heart, may our relationship with Him grow.
