Reality: The Grand Illusion

Awesome thread, please continute the discussion.
i like reading about this sort of stuff , it makes you wonder!

reply to post by TheBandit795

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Sounds a lot like the matrix!

Been looking on the site only for a couple of weeks but read this thread and thought I would join up! Very interesting and I have my theories so thought I would add my views.

If you want to read a good book on conciousness and who we are in relation to reality and conciousness I recommend a book called Jesus and the Goddess. Basically a Gnostic philopshy of the perception of life and our roles within it.

As one poster has already mentioned we are conciousness (God) watching ourselves in the process of creation, living and evolving to understand our divine nature through duality.

We are conciousness conceiving the cosmos - creating our reality by our perceptions but our dual nature makes us get trapped by our ego in thinking we are the mind, the true mind is the flow of connected consciousness that pushes us forward.
Thats why there is no need for ego, and you cant harm others because as one poster said earlier all conciousness is connected but we are looking at it from an ego/mind point of view.

Just wanted to quote something from something I have read

'We think of ourselves as passing through the cosmos, which is the permanent reality. But when we awaken, we discover that we are the permanent reality of consciousness, through which the cosmos passes.We do not exist within the cosmos, we are the conciousness of the cosmos'

The early mystery schools understood the concept of the 'return' - how as humans we are controlled by our illusory self ie the pysche/mind but our purpose was to evolve our sense of seeing the world through the eyes of our divine nature/conciousness.

'The ego is the idea of ourselves as an autonomous agent, acting separetly from the whole. But if all is one, then everything is happening as one. What we think of 'our' actions arise spontaneously from the Mystery (God/Universe). Because they pass through psyche as intentional thoughts, we say 'I intended to do that'. But although 'our' actions may appear to be the result of 'our' free will, actually they issue from the will of God'

How much free will do we have really?, if you believe that everything is consciousness and everything is one, then when we act on our thoughts are we acting on our own free will or are we acting from connectedness to conciousness?

I don't see this as much of a shift, this type of thinking has been around for a very long time, thousands of years even. Anyhow, there is a Christian "urban legend" that would prevent such a "shift" (meaning it has no real scriptural backing but is an undertone of the teachings of Revelation) the urban legend goes in the end time everyone will believe themselves as a God, or something of that sort. I heard it a long time ago in my youth (though I guess I'm still pretty "young") and it stuck with me. I don't believe it, though I think believing you can control the entire universe is pretty dangerous...I think we can effect the universe with thoughts and actions alike, but I don't think I'd be jumping off of a building to see if I could fly.

[edit on 30-4-2008 by yellowcard]

[edit on 30-4-2008 by yellowcard]

Now, that's where it ALL starts!

reply to post by johndoeknows

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Matrix (the first movie) was all based on old philosophies dating back thousands of years. Even the Mayans, Aztecs were talking about how we're all in a dream and our reality is else where. As if we're all suppose to be here, perhaps to evolve and conscious beings.

I posted a thread a while back, kinda seems to fit all these.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by yellowcard

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Bandit was saying a shift in the modern 'West' not that this is a new paradigm for Mankind.

There has been a paradigm shift in the West, which is clearly moving towards the direction that Eastern thought does e.g Oneness reality that permeates and connects all things, and so separate external reality is ultimately maya in that it originates from the One source (a unified field of reality). You can see evidence for this in cognitive neuroscience, quantum theories, any many other emerging scientific fields.

reply to post by TheBandit795

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of course, we only know what we think we know! this is obvious.

who cares about the absolute reality, if anyone can explain what that is? We are what we are and are a product of the circumstances, of the environment.

Advocating that we live in a lie just because each one of us has his own perspective about reality is a false question because having its own perspective about reality its inherit to each one of us as human beings.

reply to post by Lucid Lunacy

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We are picking up the easts philosophy, they are picking up the wests technology. Seems like a good mix.

Reality is the manifestation of our perspectives, feelings, that head towards action. We have such a thing called will. But it's up to us to decide whether or not to make those choices happen. There is no right or wrong, nor truth or lie. The perspective from your mind decides whether you think what is (right , wrong, true, false, and etc.) through an action or feeling. It's a free world if you think that way. But is a tight circle, restrained by one idealogy and belief. That's what controls us.

I was thinking the same thing

What a great post! Reality is indeed a relative term. In our waking conscience state we have routine and familiar surroundings that reassure us of our identity/ego. Having used, but not recommending psychoactive substances such as psilocybin mushrooms, peyote, ketamine, etc...I have come to the conclusion that reality comes in many forms. While under the influence of these chemicals I was able to see sound, taste color, witnessed hieroglyphics appear on my ceiling, I have been separated from my body and was reduced to a smaller one foot version of myself, spent what I thought was hours talking to a smiley face on my patio about the meaning of life, and was able to take in the absolute beauty in absolutely everything. I know that sounds corny and trite but it's the truth! Since these experiences and my renewed appreciation for life It's become difficult to kill even the most disgusting of creatures like flies and ants due to their individual and inherent beauty. I also have great empathy for people with schizophrenia, having been told by my former shrink it's equivalent to a 24/7 acid trip in some cases. I no longer use mind expanding drugs, but rather meditation, having seen a documentary on Syd Barret I was a bit put off, and realized there was a dark side to this type of drug use. Don't want to be stuck in a permanent psychedelic state of consciousness. A very good book I recommend to all ATS users is "DMT The Spirit Molecule" by: Richard Strassman, M.D. It's about test subjects at a college university receiving intravenous injections of dimethyltryptamine and the effects this very powerful drug had on them. This is a true story, and after reading it will make you question reality on soooo many levels. Peace.

'Tis called solipsism, my friend. I find my mind wandering off on this subject all the time. Like, how do I know that everyone in this world is real? Or the computer i'm typing on. The Latin "Cogito, Ergo sum," is translated as "I think, therefore I am." If I wanted to be literal, depending on my definition of "I" that may not even be true.

reply to post by mw23224

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Well, If I wanted to be technical, too. I would ask myself what is thought? Where does it come from? Am I even sure that it is mine? Whether it is or not I am always only a reaction to the scene around me, making choices based on my universe and sometimes impulse. Am I really thinking? Or am I merely the whiplash at the end of the rope?

So, I think I am, therefore I am. Using this same logic: I think I am not, therefore I am not.

Now how "I think, therefore I am", makes any sense at all still eludes me. Now alluding to the logic induced in such a statement, the person making this claim would also have to concede that the logic "I don't think, therefore I am not"... is also true. And since our thoughts may only be a prespired transpirement, that is a an eventual and eternal reaction of the actions around us, then what are we when we introduce ourself into that environment as one with it instead of a thinking sentient being supposedly independent of it? We are thoughtless, we are the inevitable occurence, we are the environment happening... thus we are thoughtless, therefore we are not?

I agree, we are and we are not. We are presence and absence. We are everything and nothing.

[edit on 30-4-2008 by LastOutfiniteVoiceEternal]

no, there is a Jesus Christ, there is God and there is Satan. This is the reality. In the US, we believe that we have a democracy, we don't. We think that we are all there is, there are entities and there is a the supernatural that we don't know. This is the true course in one paragraph. The Bible does in fact tell you about the supernatual and what God is all about.




reply to post by TheBandit795

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This is why I love ATS. People are actually capable of higher thought here.

And not afraid of its implications. This is a step in the right direction. I don't think we have it exactly right.. I don't think we will totally get it... perhaps until the shift comes.. then maybe just maybe it will be more clear... and yet... maybe still not totally.. but ideas like this bring us closer to enlightenment.

Alan Watts once likened the search for reality as the Great Cosmic Game of the Creator playing the ultimate Game of Hide and Seek. We are all part of him. Once all the parts realize this then the game is over. May take many kalpas but time does not matter in the grand scheme. "This" is the ILLUSION.

reply to post by tgambill

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There is no god, there is no satan and it is possible that there were a jesus but he was just a man.

What is written in the bible is a fabrication made by hundreds of people along hundreds of years (and I´m only talking about the new testament)

Religion was useful and still is to tame the mankind, without it we would behave like irrational animals (in fact we still do) it control us by the most primitive instinct of all, the surviving instinct, it control us by fear.

But because it would be disbelieved very quickly if it limit its field of operation to the mundane life they create an after life world (in fact they grabbed the idea from previous cults) so in this afterlife would called heaven everyone would face eternal justice.

I´m not against religion, in fact I like it and like to study it... the fact is that I´m not sure if this way of "educating"/controlling people is positive anymore, just because of the theme of this tread, do we know what reality is?

I think we as christians should start questioning the real motived behind religion, not only ours but all fear based religions, or we will never be free to do exactly what we think Jesus told us.

[edit on 1/5/08 by derfred33]

Ha! It does.

Asia was the last place a major "ripening" like this happened and it's no surprise the wisest offerings today still come from things like the Bhagavad Gita and the Tao te Ching.