Illusion to Reality

I am not hearing from one, or two or a handful, but I am getting feedbacks from a number of people that life seems to be getting more and more meaningless to them. And there are even some who think they are going through a mid-life crisis. And guess what? The parking bays at one shopping complex are full with cars during working hours! What is going on? Are people getting more and more restless, disturb and uneasy?

Seems like a great shift is moving in everyone of us – irrelevant whether we are aware of it or not. Our preoccupation with thoughts make us oblivious to this change. The rumbling within can be as loud as a shouting, if only one were to sit quietly, doing nothing and just observing the mind.

There are more eclipses, tremors and earthquakes than before. If the saying “what is within, so is without” is true, then is the nature of the world reflecting what is going on in each and everyone of us – the landscape of the mind? I do think so. The outer landscape is reflecting the inner landscape. In reality there is no outer or inner as both are just a reflection of each other. The inner landscape of the mind is more real than what is outside, relatively. For all our experiences of the world are going through within us – the way we perceived and the accompanied feelings. In fact that is all we are. We have never left our experiences.

Do watch the latest movie Alice In Wonderland. Alice, in one scene of the movie, told Mad Hatter: “What I am experiencing is just a figment of my own imagination.” Mad Hatter: “You mean I am not real?” “Yes,” replied Alice. And at the end of the scene when Alice was pondering whether to drink the elixir that will bring her out of the dream, Mad Hatter persuaded her not to: “You can still be in the dream” and for that Alice replied: “What a tiny wonderful idea”!

Are we all in our own dream making the world as what it is now? Is there a dragon out there for us to slay or an inner dragon that is awaiting our meeting? What tiny mad idea are we having that still imprison us in the dream? And where is the doorway out of this dream?

Would changing the landscape within, changes the landscape without? We are not taught that way and that is exactly what is happening here on earth – it is always about fixing someone, something – out there – instead of coming back within and see what is the thing that is pissing us off so much. When will we take responsibility of our thoughts and feelings, though they are not entirely us?

When will we be the master of our own creation, choosing what we want to experience in the world, by creating what is within us? And thus the first step is to take into awareness, with love, what is already brewing within – to face to face with it, in full acceptance, forgiveness and love. Only by doing so, can creation comes into picture – creating what we wish to experience. Otherwise, the pirated version of it, the imitation of trying to make something out of what is already here comes into play. It is just another cover up and we will never get out from it, on the contrary, entangle ourselves deeper into the conditioning of our own ignorance.

Alice: But I don’t want to go among mad people.
The Cat: Oh, you can’t help that. We’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.
Alice: How do you know I’m mad?
The Cat: You must be. Or you wouldn’t have come here.
Alice: And how do you know that you’re mad?
The Cat: To begin with, a dog’s not mad. You grant that?
Alice: I suppose so,
The Cat: Well, then, you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.

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Duchess: Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.

– Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Blogger’s Note:
If I value form, I may be blinded by his actions and judge therein.
If I value essence, form does not mean anything to me.
Whatever it is, if judgments come within me, the process of forgiveness is necessary
I am entirely responsible for it.
If I am not willing to see my own shortcomings,
That unwillingness is also my forgiveness.