The world is an illusion—the Spiritual journey from being Somebody to Nobody.
Shift in the Center of Living – From Mind to Being.
The world is an illusion because the physical world we experience is not the ultimate reality but a manifestation and projection of our mind’s consciousness. The physical world is transient and impermanent, constantly changing and subject to decay and suffering. The illusionary nature of the physical world is often described in terms of “Maya” or “Illusion.”
When our center of living is changed from mind to Being through suffering or grace, we go through an inner shift in consciousness. Then we feel and experience the joy of Being, as an unchanging & eternal reality that is beyond the realm of the physical world. From the being consciousness, the suffering and pain we experience in the physical world are seen as a result of our attachment to the illusory nature of the world. The ultimate goal is to transcend the world and attain Enlightenment by realizing the inner Being.
Identifying with Your Mind
When you identify with your mind, you create a barrier of thoughts, judgments, and labels that blocks your ability to connect with yourself, others and nature. You can’t even feel your being-that is god itself. This mental barrier creates the illusion that you are separate from everything else, and you forget the deeper Truth that you are actually connected to all on a deeper level. This forgetfulness causes you to lose touch with the reality of your Oneness with the universe. You may believe in Oneness, but it is only through your own experience, does it becomes liberating.
The Way of Living of an Awakened and Unawakened Person
The transient world is an illusion to an awakened person because he sees the world as its own Self. There is no difference between him and others. There are NO others for him. Everything and everybody is one for him. He feels Oneness with the whole universe.
On the other hand, the mind-identified person is unaware of his Oneness with the Being and doesn’t understand that everything in the world is connected and comes from the same source. Consequently, his mind constructs an imaginary world of separate interacting objects by persistently misinterpreting the sense perception it receives from its senses. This way of seeing the world is like dreaming because it’s not based on reality but on the mind’s creation.
So the awakened person sees and experiences the world as his Self, as the manifestation of his Being. In contrast, an unawakened person experiences the world of separateness, where he is a separate suspended fragment in the dog-eating dog world that is decaying and suffering. The unawakened person considers this transitory world as real. Hence the world impact and acts on an unawakened person as his “center of living” is his dysfunctional mind.
World is an Illision: How Does Your Mind Create The World You Live?
The nature of Being is Sat-Chit-Ananda
Sat means Truth. The absolute Truth is Being that is eternal existence.
Chit is Consciousness or Awareness
Ananda is Bliss
So the nature of Being is Existence, conscious and Bliss.
Whenever you surrender your mind within and rest it in your Being, your nature is existence, conscious and blissful. Your mind transforms into being itself. When your mind goes outward, it becomes unconscious. This unconscious mind is the Ego, which is identified with thousand things of the world.
The existence of an independent entity known as the world is dependent on the presence of thoughts. During deep, dreamless sleep, thoughts and the world cease to exist. When the mind goes outward from Being, it turns into the Ego and the world. Therefore, when the world appears real, the Being does not appear. When the mind turns inward, it transforms into Being. Then Being only shines, and the world does not appear. Once you realize Being everything is ONE for you. You see the world as your self. In this way, by thinking and identifying with things and people, your mind creates the world in which you exist.
Why does the world seem so real and the mind cannot Deny the World?
Both the dream and waking worlds are creations of the mind, and so long as the mind is engrossed in either, it finds it difficult to deny their reality. For exa: In a dream, your mind accepts the reality of impossible things, like talking to a dead person, without questioning it. The dream vision becomes real to you in the moment. It is the same in the waking state, for you cannot doubt the reality of the world you see while you are awake.
With all your desires, fantasies and attachments to the world, how can you recognize the world as an illusion? The waking dream of thoughts seems more real than a sleeping dream. How can the mind that has created the world in a waking state accept it as unreal? That’s why the mind cannot deny the world.
However, if one withdraws their mind from the world and turns within to abide in the Being, they will realize that the world they experience is just as unreal as the dream world. The sensations we experience in the waking world are so desirous that it attract the mind and give us the impression of reality, but this does not necessarily prove the world’s objective reality. The dream may be an illusory creation, but it is real to us until we realize it is illusory, and the same goes for the waking world.
Early Spiritual Aspirants need to consider the world as an Illusion
For early spiritual aspirants, the process must start from the understanding that the “world is an illusion” as you are mostly living from the mind consciousness to the “world is my Self” when you realize Being and living from the Being consciousness
Why so?
Because unless you give up the idea that the world is real, your mind will always be after it. If you take the appearance to be real, you will never know the real itself, although the real alone-that is Being- exists.
When you create the world from your mind and take the world as real, as explained above, you become ambitious and competitive when you feel the feeling of lack or unworthiness. So you are compelled to achieve and acquire more and more, placing your self-worth on external things.
Now, as you are always concerned about how the world perceives you, your whole sense of self-esteem, self-worth, and self-concept depends on the world. All identities are derived from the outside world. Everything you value is now coming from outside yourself.
So Instead of surrendering your mind to Being and going inward, your mind always goes outward and makes you identify with all worldly things. And that brings a tremendous amount of suffering to you. Now at the end of your life, you realize that you lost this birth in chasing the transient things of this world. And you get stuck in the suffering of the birth and death cycle again and again.
Remember that what the world gives you can be taken away by the world anytime. So you live in this desperate thought that you will not be “success” in the world if you don’t achieve, acquire and compete continuously. This thought is known as Fear. Remember, this is an egoic illusion. Ego and the world has implanted this illusion in us.
The secret of life is to “die towards all mental conditioning and attachment before physical death” and realize that there is no Death.
In other words: To discover eternal existence, one must experience the Death of the mind’s conditioning that identify with its material possessions, career, social standing, education, physical appearance, talents and relationships. You must also stop identifying yourself with your personal and ancestral history, belief systems, and even group identities such as nationality, race, or religion.
Once you die towards all the above temporary attachments before physical Death occurs, you will realize that there is no Death.
The Spiritual Journey of being Somebody to Nobody
The Spiritual awakening is the journey from Somebody to Nobody. The center of living shifts from the mind to Being. From somebody to nobody. From something to nothing. God is No-body, No-thing.
World is an illusion and not real. If you continue to react to it, you will not be able to awaken. Believing that the world is impacting & acting on you hinders Enlightenment. Only those who have transcended the world can attain liberation
