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The World, an Illusion – Unveiling the Truth

In this very one-fathom-long body, along with its perceptions and thoughts, do I proclaim the world, the origin of the world, the cessation of the world, and the path leading to the cessation of the world.
– Buddha (Rohitassa Sutta)

Whoever has come to know the world has discovered the body, and whomever has discovered the body, of that one the world is not worthy.
– Yeshua

It is interesting to observe similarity with what the Buddha said and Christ (to bring both to the title status). When both names are mentioned, I am not speaking about religion, or personnel, but about how each and everyone of us has the potential of seeing what the masters are seeing. Neither is it about blind beliefs or gimmicks.

A question was posed by one of the Ascended Masters in the book Your Immortal Reality about whether the body is in the mind or the mind in the body. It kept me questioning. Let me share a strange happening I experienced, probably a year ago, when I went for a haircut at a saloon. While waiting for my turn, I was flipping through one of those fashion magazine and came across a fascinating photo of three artisites which I rarely see coming together – Rowena Cortes, Francis Yip and Anita Sarawak. I did not questioned why the mind was fascinated by the shot.

Imagine what happened that night. I was in a function together with them having a conversation! What a creation the mind can achieve. And of course in that situation, everything is as real as you are reading this. That makes me ponder – if the dream is real and I am not aware that it is a dream, what about I am here? Is it too a dream?

If you were to give yourself a little natural awareness in observing thought just immediately upon waking up and at the same time the mind wanting to goes back to sleep again – you will be shock to recognize that whatever thought you have at that moment of time prior to your going back to sleep, becomes a reality when you fall back to sleep again. When I say a reality, I mean that the whole thought is played out as a drama, so real that it is no longer a picture but a video instead with you in it! Should I call it is a real-time movie?

Welcome to the world – a real-time movie with you as a director, producer, cast, actors, actresses, audiences – everything is YOU! If Francis Yip, Rowena Cortes or Anita Sarawak, for that matter, could be conjured by the mind, what more in this real-time movie I called the “world” is conjured entirely by the mind? Is the world, a mind creation? You betcha! Quantum physic is already proving that.

It is bizarre to recognize that when I come to a clear realization of what I truly experience is a dream, whenever I am angry, I will remember that I am not angry with anyone else except myself. Whenever I felt betrayed, I am self-betraying yourself. Whenever I are unable to forgive “somebody outside” there, in truth I am not forgiving myself. I am just fooling myself all the time! More than that – there is no one for me to be attached to except my own illusion as thoughts and perceptions.

The world is me and I am the world. More correctly, when “I” exist, the “world” came into existence, with all its thoughts and perceptions. “I” need to be resolved and in that space peace is regained.

What that is looking for is what that looks. – St Francis of Asisi

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Path to Deathlessness

PRACTICE MANTRA: Begin again and again from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already presented here.

I begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already presented in the Now. Again I begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already presented in the Now. And again and again I remember to begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is already in the Now. The cycle begins again, and again, and again. I do not leg go of the past, instead the past let go of me when I begin again to this non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is here for me. This is what practice is all about.

What is presented to me in each moment is different, each Now is always New, and each New is a total fresh experience. In this consistent newness, I keep remembering to begin from non-knowing, in a state of total being, fully awake and bearing witness to what is here for me.

Understanding takes place between the space of the practice and the Now. This is where transformation arise, where wisdom culminates. Fire is not hidden in the match-stick or the box. Fire is conditioned by the meeting. Understanding too is the same. Understanding is not me or you. It is impersonal, a condition arising from the meeting of the practice and the Now.

When the practice mantra is not put forth, the mind habitually goes back to knowing, in a state of doing instead, totally unaware and unawake to the newness of the Now and thus unable to bear witness to what is here for me. The unawake state is blind to the freshness of the Now and what it sees are presumptions, judgments, conclusions from all habitual ideas and patterns of the past. What it sees now are color glass of perceptions. How could there be Truth?

Heedfulness is the path to the Deathless.
Heedlessness is the path to death.
The heedful die not.
The heedless are as if dead already.
– Buddha

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.
– Rumi

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Ideas, Views & Beliefs

I have been observing the mind for quite awhile now and recognized that what I know is all I know. I can’t know what I have yet to know except to know that I don’t know. So I can only knows what I know and don’t know. I can’t know beyond these two. Will there be any possibility that there is an area call I don’t know that I don’t know? If I know such area I am still in one of the space of knowing what I don’t know and not really experiencing I don’t know that I don’t know. You have to digest a slowly to understand the tongue twisting lines of what I have just shared. It is not possible to don’t know entirely as it is already preceded by knowing you don’t know. I am not talking of knowing in the context of object but the subject itself.

So what is it that I know? Know is something that already existed in mind. If it has not existed in mind, the mind would not understand what it is been shown except as an entire new experience totally. Upon experiencing it, it becomes a knowing, sometimes comes with understanding. Bear in mind that knowing and understanding is not related at all. So knowing is a second hand knowledge of what has been experienced. Yeshua calls it the second symbol. Just a symbol, nothing great about it.

In truth what we knows are merely a bundle of ideas, concepts, thoughts, views or mere beliefs. They are devoid of substance. And yet, at the same time, they can be useful tools directing us to the Truth. It can also direct us away from the Truth!

There are ideas that set you free and there are ideas that imprison you. The Buddha mentioned Right Views and Wrong Views to mean pathways that lead to freedom or imprisonment. Quoting Yeshua again:

A wise fisherman cast his net into the sea. When he drew it up it was full of little fish. Among them, he discovered a large, fine fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and he chose the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears should listen.

In my system, or rather the personality of who I am, are merely a bundle of two kinds of ideas – Right Ideas and Wrong Ideas ( I am using idea the same as views, beliefs, concepts etc). Other than that I can’t exist. So it is true to say existence comes from the appearance of ideas.

If you wish to be free and peaceful, keep questioning your ideas, particularly manifesting in your thoughts. Most of them are not real and true. Only when you are present to your thoughts are you able to meet it with understanding. That is what I meant when I say knowing and understanding is entirely different. It is the same as saying knowledge and wisdom is far apart.