Questioning the World perceived as Outside Us

Almost no humans question their reality. Most are not intelligent enough to do so and are not much different than animals, just living their lives in total complacency. There are levels to which we can question this world. For instance, we can question why it is so full of injustice and cruelty, or we can go even deeper and question its basic design or justification. Anyone who has some sense can see the unappealing aspect of us being multicellular organisms with our unaesthetic internal organs, digestive system and its ugliness. Our body is meant to be a miracle of great engineering and wisdom, as is the supposed beauty of pregnancy and birth. Oh well, if it is beautiful or plain ugly is a matter of opinion. Ramana kept saying that our body is a disease. One could argue that he was himself physically not well, not living in his body at all, and conditioned by life-negating Indian philosophy. But he did have a point. There is much beauty here as well, or so it seems, or perhaps it is just the illusion of beauty to keep us seduced by the world of appearances.

We can see from the movie The Matrix that the human mind can question this world, but does it really? In the movie nothing was fundamentally questioned at all. On the contrary, we were supposed to awaken to the ‘real’ world by reclaiming our physical bodies, going from one illusion or simulation to another. As a metaphor, the movie was very insightful, offering deep observations such as: “This is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” “What truth?” “That you are a slave. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison… for your mind”. However, the understanding of what is not-matrix was entirely lacking, which was no surprise. People know only the matrix and even the ideas they project onto life after earth are just the same matrix. Some ingenious people introduced the idea of going ‘beyond’ this reality, but they have no imagination to understand what this world is or what it is they really question. Existence itself is absurd, but we cannot entirely deny its reality. We can, however, question its meaning as it manifests on multiple levels. However, most people have no potential to question this reality because they are not really living, but merely functioning like machines, entirely disconnected from the truth.

As this world is non-existent, so are all the people in it. They walk around as trillions of cells that swarm with trillions of germs, and take their existence for granted. They develop pride and protect their ridiculous and pathetic self-image, unable to see its absurdity. Not only other people are this world, but your body too is this world, the non-existence and absurdity of which you fail to see.

Religious people say that God created the world and everything is meant to be justified, such as the evil of human beings, or the fact that we all compete for survival, killing and feeding on other living things. It is not just an imperfect design, it is an entirely perverted one. Around eight million children every year are born crippled in one way or another. Who is responsible for that tremendous suffering? Similarly, compassion and love in this world come only from those whose bellies are full, while they are content in the illusion of their security. Everybody looks for fulfillment in genital love, but the older and uglier you get, the less chance you have to find a mate. Is it love, or is it a cosmic joke? And yet all poems, songs, books and movies are glorifying this love, putting it on a pedestal as the greatest thing in the world. People fall in love only because their partner is unconsciously interpreted as suitable for procreation. What kind of love is this? This world itself is a joke, but you need a higher perspective to be able to see it, or else you just remain stuck in the system, like a fish in a tiny aquarium or a frog in a well. It is heartbreaking to see how people try to be attractive, such as not getting belly fat, begging to be loved by the opposite sex. People do not strive merely to be healthy, but to be loved, because they are nothing without others agreeing to have sex with them. How much more pathetic can it get? It is beyond sad; there is no dignity here. Everyone is prostituting themselves to get some love. What are human relations other than how the other person can threaten us or what he can give us for our benefit? Life is based on complete selfishness, but people shamelessly pretend to be kind and magnanimous, and the satisfaction they get from that thought is nothing but a shameless form of selfishness. And then there is the fundamental impermanency of everything. Our life is not merely fleeting, it is actually momentary. As children, we become terrified the moment we first become aware of our mortality, but then we keep pushing this thought away, creating the pretense that we are going to live here forever. How different are we from a mere fly who is going to perish in a few weeks of its meaningless existence? Our sense of time, meaning and purpose are entirely distorted.

After painting this gloomy picture, we must ask if this reality is simply horrible? Yes, it is horrible, no doubt, and anyone who wants to justify it by God, laws of nature, or whatnot, is living in denial and a lie. However, it does not mean that it has no purpose. This world is a matrix indeed, but not in the sense that we belong to some other planet or dimension. It is a matrix because it is just a state of mind, a hallucination, not an objective reality. You must see the distinction between the relative objectivity of this place – which is no different than our subjective-collectively conditioned interpretation of it – and its absolute objectivity. We are meant to evolve into reality through a multitude of experiences, so that we can see beyond the apparent construct of our so-called ’empirical’ experience. Nothing that we know as ‘earth’ is real, but this does not mean that it does not exist. It exists as a necessary context to challenge our mind and force us into evolution. So, this world is both real and very much unreal. To say that it is only an illusion would be missing the point. But to say that it is real, would be missing the point even more. It is a dream, but because it is experienced by us, it is a real dream, in which we develop our intelligence and consciousness. To see this world as real, as humans experience it, makes no sense whatsoever. It is real, but only as a dream. It is this dream that gives meaning to our existence, as long as we are able to wake up from it. Everyone is part of the system, as they say in The Matrix. They are not ready to be unplugged, which makes them our enemy. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. This means that everyone who questions the reality of this world is bound to be alone.

When you are born, you are born into the dream, and then you keep sleepwalking for the rest of your so-called life. This is why the concept of waking up is often associated with spiritual realization. However, even if you awaken to pure subjectivity, you still keep living a dream, because the human part of you is entirely identified with the matrix, believing it to be the real world. This is why the second awakening is needed, awakening from the dream. Awakening to your true self is an awakening in a dream to what is beyond dream, but it is not transcendence of the dream itself. Here, you simply experience your true self in the dream, or from the dream, but you still remain asleep.

Most souls who begin their spiritual evolution into enlightenment seek the truth of the beyond, but they are unable to identify the absurdity of this place, other than just wanting to escape it. They are unable to awaken from the dream, because they do not understand that they are dreaming. The common idea that God created this pit of Hell is an old trick or an excuse not to look straight into the face of reality. First of all, it is not an intelligent design, but a very strange design. People try to justify the imperfection of God’s creation by their karma. What karma? The concept of karma is another trick of the mind, and a projection of our guilt. We prefer to feel sinful rather than blaming God, because if God were to be wrong, there is no hope left at all. The human mind is amazing in its ability to deny the truth. There are only two justifications for God as the creator of this miserable reality: one, that this world does not exist other than being a construct of the mind, and second, that God does not exist, being himself just a fabrication of that very mind.

People live their entire lives in a dream. The closest they come to awakening to the illusion of it is when they are about to die. But even then, they create other illusions born of fear by imagining meeting their loved ones after death, or going to heaven. They just cannot ever face the truth. They are born blind and they die blinded even more, crippled by life itself.

Deconstructing the Dream

We must be cautious here because some people talk about the dream-like, illusory nature of existence, just from the mind. This is only the arrogant mind talking. For instance, in Buddhism they came up with the concept of dependent origination, where everything is inherently empty and there is no self. So what? They can intellectually talk about illusion, but such talk is itself an illusion, conceited in its ambition to reach intellectual satisfaction, while lying to itself. This is the problem with reaching various philosophical conclusions: one deludes oneself by the pretension of having understood the nature of reality, when, in fact, nothing is understood. To deconstruct the dream, we must see reality directly, without any religious bias or philosophical filters and lenses. And first we must be established in our own pure nature beyond the mind, which I refer to here for the sake of simplicity as the first awakening.

Seeing a dream as a dream is not a function of intellectual enquiry, but of a deeper insight. The first level of that insight is to see the absurdity of existence. But absurdity can also be felt from the mind. For instance, the idea that life has no justification and is in fact absurd is present in the philosophy of existentialism. Yes, the mind can also feel existence as absurd, but here absurdity becomes just another experience of the world, not a stepping stone to a deeper understanding. On the other hand, to get in touch with real absurdity is where you directly feel that you exist, but the world (inherently) doesn’t. This is not to be confused with nihilism, or denial of everything. The world appears to exist in the eye of our mind, but simply does not exist in itself, objectively.

So here we have two elements required to deconstruct the dream of the world: pure subjectivity and the feeling of absurdity. If you do not feel life as absurd, you cannot deconstruct the dream, because to do so you need to have great seeing and great distance from it prior to waking up. But how to activate the great seeing? It is by looking, because you need to actually, truly and totally look into the face of the world in order to See the truth. Having an insight into the non-existence of this world is in itself an awakening of Sight. There is no trick to it or intellectual speculation. It is not like a method of Buddhist philosophy where a mental logic is used to unravel the voidness of phenomenal reality. You cannot see the truth of this world by thinking about it. It is a direct perception of what is as only appearing so, while in fact having no existence. The world is a construct of mind, deceiving us into believing it to exist objectively. Its purpose, however, is not only to deceive us but to provide a context for the evolution of consciousness. Yes, it is ultimately a lie, but this lie serves a purpose, because without a lie there is no truth either. The very purpose of the illusion of this world is waking up.

Awakening to the World within Us

As mentioned, the first step is going beyond the dream by realization of reality. Our soul is simply a personification of reality itself. It is the one who knows reality, versus personality which only knows the illusion. The next step is the second awakening from the dream itself by activating the penetrative vision, so that we can see through the world of appearances. Here, you not only begin to perceive the world from pure subjectivity, but you see the world as pure subjectivity. After all, the world has always been a pure subjectivity in disguise, veiling itself from what it truly is. After you see the world for what it truly is, it does not disappear, but it ceases to veil itself, to pretend to be what it is not. Here, the illusion disappears and the dream becomes reality, and you no longer believe the world is an objective construct outside of you. The world finally stops hiding from you, deceiving you, separating you from One Truth. By awakening to the non-existence of this world, it becomes real. When the mirage dissolves, the truth is revealed. Separated from Self, this world is the false idol that fools worship. But known as Self, this world is no longer cheating us, but showing us who we truly are.

If so, is the world a horrible place as we concluded before? It depends. It is horrible as an objective dimension, but it is different as a realm of subjectivity. Your evaluation of this world reflects how the world shows itself to you, which in turn depends on the lessons you are supposed to learn. It is still imperfect, because the information it provides is inevitably linked to the collective mind. For instance, whatever people you meet in this world are totally unconscious, no different than animals, just more clever and less innocent. Anyone you meet is a fool, and this is the reality of this planet, but this has to be embraced. If you try to communicate with other people because you seek intimacy, better not mention anything spiritual, or else you will be rejected. As far as the collective is concerned, you are alone here. It is like trying to get intimate with monkeys, which is possible, but does not go very far. And yet, it is also true that there is not one world, but a multitude of worlds – one for every soul. Yes, people share a similar construct of reality as the collective interpretation of the external environment of the earth. Because most people have to experience much negativity in order to grow, this is how the world presents itself to them. The external negativity is as real as our internal one, and as unreal too. Such a world is a world of cruelty, injustice and deep suffering on countless levels. To change the world you need to change yourself. But this is not just about positive thinking, but rather seeing the world as the territory of subjectivity, in the context of which you evolve. Yes, cultivating positivity, making peace with the world, serving our evolution and developing gratitude are of the essence. But no matter how much you try to think positively, as long as the world is outside of you, it is false by default; and the false will only breed more falseness, illusion and ignorance.

Indeed, people manifest their reality, but they have very little to no control, as their world is but an extension of their false self. The false self lives in the false world, and nothing good can come out of it. But realization of the true self does not guarantee that the world becomes real. It is bound to remain false as long as it is not realized as our true self. Taking responsibility for your life is above all about your perception of the world. Do not try to interpret it, do not project your opinions on the external reality, do not impose your views. Do not interfere with the world. As long as you see the world outside of you, you cannot trust it; it can always deceive and betray you, because it is collective. Only the world seen as living in you can be trusted, and only such a world has actual meaning. Even though such a world is connected to the collective, it is actually individual, personal and intimate. Let the world respond to you, come to you and show its wisdom to your soul. Because the world is here for you and you only. Let it teach you and bring to your life the magic of evolution. The world is the second half of your soul, her counterpart with which she is meant to interact in creation; it is her soul-mate, in fact. Such a relationship is the most precious and represents the essence of life itself. Let this world become illuminated by your true nature. Let it finally become your world, your very own beloved. Conclusion

The reader can be confused now as two very different or even opposing views of reality have been offered here. Which world is the true one, the world of utter absurdity in which ignorant people live, or the one actualized as pure subjectivity? There is only one reality, it is just the perception of it can be true or false. The world as people know it simply does not exist, but only appears so. It does exist, but only as a dream, nothing more. It is the inherent contradiction between appearing and yet not existing that creates the overwhelming feeling of absurdity. It is this sense of absurdity that is causing us to distrust its pretension of being real. As people have no self, so their world has no self either. The one and true world is not felt as absurd, in a similar way as we do not feel absurdity in the knowledge of our pure nature. Such a world is the only real one, while the false world is a mere passage to the awakening of the true world, the moment it becomes known as our true self experienced as the relatively external space that communicates with I am within us.