Introspection - 11 : The Illusion of Space

The black hole in the movie Interstellar

One of the questions that is often asked is - it is very clear that time is an illusion produced by the mind but what about the space? It is said that space is also an illusion. But how can we see that it is really so? Lets explore it using our own direct experience.

Origin of the World

We saw the mind in detail in last article - a very important part of the manifestation or creation, that we call Experience. We can now go deeper into the Experience and see what else lies there and how it all originated.

The metaphysical patterns and processes not only form minds, they form all kinds of structures. Minds happen to be a special kind. So what are those other structures? We see them all around us, they are things, objects, systems, physical or non-physical, we are surrounded by all kinds of patterns. A collection of objects is called a World. So we are going to take a look at the world in this article.

The Creation

Inner Cosmos, Tapestry by Maximo Laura, Peru

One of the strange thing about experience, we noticed, is that it is ever changing. In fact, no change means no experience. So change, even though not existing independently from experience, is fundamental. It deserves the title of Truth. When we observe closely, we find that what is changing is patterns, all kinds of patterns. That gives us some clues about the manifested reality, because, manifestation is nothing but patterns, all kinds of patterns.

Mind Map

Iconic Map of Universal Mind

It is our direct experience that Presence is dynamic. There is activity, there is change. Although there is this static unchanging aspect of it which we know as the experiencer, or "I" or pure consciousness. Ultimately both dynamic and static aspects are just one. That which changes becomes an experience and that which is changeless becomes the experiencer. There is not much to the experiencer part, it is just empty awareness, a silent witness, the light that illuminates the changing part, except that it is essential and necessary for all the experiences, it is plain boring :). The interesting things are the dynamics, the endless activity, unceasing and ever-creating patterns. This is seen as the manifested Presence, the Universal Mind.

We will try to create a map of it all - the biggest possible picture.

Introspection - 5 : Illusion of a Material World

Goal

We will attempt to experience the illusion of a separate material world directly.

Prerequisites

Same as that for introspection - 1. Note that the word "World" is used with a philosophical meaning. Whatever that surrounds us here and now. So its not the globe or the "cruel world".

This is probably the easiest of all introspections. You don't need to keep the mind out of the way. It stops on its own. But it is always good to start with a clear mind.

Question

Ask yourself - What is this world made of?
 

Introspection - 3 : Mind and World

Goal

We will attempt to experience the creation of duality or plurality out of oneness.

Prerequisites

Same as those for introspection - 1. I will now skip directly to the questions. The state you need to be in is described in detail in previous introspections.

Question - what is experienced? 

Start with the neutral state of awareness of everything with no unneeded mental activity. Once you are steady ask this question - what is experienced?

You will find that the mind starts instantly like an engine and begins presenting things one by one. Your attention will now be on patterns. You will encounter Contents. These are the usual objects, people, sense perceptions, thoughts, memories, feelings etc. The one has become many in response to that question. It is now expressing itself as our old friend - the Mind. Mind is a process that creates divisions, provides an illusion of multiplicity. This is the familiar experience of waking consciousness, the Self being conscious of Contents.

Acting without actions - Forgiveness

 

The world is beautiful. There is abundance. The body is well adapted to it. There is so much to do, learn and explore here. But then there are other people, with their huge Egos, they spoil all the fun. A lot of suffering is caused by retarded behaviour of others. In their ignorance and under the influence of wild Egoic tendencies, these people cause great harm and suffering. Sometimes a persons invites trouble by his own actions. Whatever is the cause, a majority of our suffering comes from others. Even seekers find themselves dealing with ignorant people who destroy their peace of mind routinely. Fortunately, one need not throw all those people out of the world, one can shield himself from their harmful effects. Realize that suffering is a state of mind, your own mind, and even if someone else is responsible for your messed up state of mind, you are fully capable of restoring it back to happiness. We all are free to do so, the choice is always there. This trick is called forgiving. It is useful when your suffering originates outside, usually from other people.

Forgiving is a mental action which is aimed at clearing negative programs. It is an action that results in non-action. Negative programs are mental structures that cause negative thoughts, desires and actions, which in turn lead to suffering and even more negative programs. This vicious circle continues. Negative or harmful programs are formed due to Egoic tendencies of anger, hate, envy, etc. The programs enforce these tendencies and cause more negative actions, and hence more suffering. Usually other people that are themselves under the influence of harmful programs are responsible for implanting those negative tendencies in their victims. In simple words, bad behaviour of bad people turns a person with otherwise healthy mind into a person full of mental afflictions and suffering. This happens because people are usually unconscious of their own tendencies and get easily influenced by other’s behaviour.

What is the cure? Forgive. The vicious circle needs to be broken at some point. One needs to do it by consciously terminating the programs or thoughts or actions. This needs to be done repeatedly because the mental structures are formed and strengthened via repetition and erasing them also requires repetition of corrective action. In simple words, not allowing and acting on the negative thoughts, which come up again and again, will slowly make the bad actions and suffering go away. This is the act of forgiving essentially.

The Illusion of World

A typical realistic virtual real time game environment

Lets explore the world more and dig into some crazy ideas. And also see how a seeker experiences a world, and of what use a world is for seekers.

Virtual world 

The advent of virtual worlds generated via computers has rekindled an interest in theories that propose non-existence of a material world [1]. These days the simulated worlds look as real as the real world, especially when high end hardware is employed. Total sensory immersion into a simulated world is not a fiction, it is inevitable. As we know, these extensive, rich and life like worlds on our screens are nothing but numbers. What makes us suspect that our everyday world is also nothing but numbers? There are many reasons. Quantum description of the matter immediately suggests that there are no actual entities, only values. In other words, the matter is just numbers.  Strangely, the physical universe satisfies many requirements of a simulated world. A short list of such requirements is as follows [2]:

The Experience of the World

The story so far - the Presence acting as Self has a universal Mind which has instances of individual minds that are interfaced via structures known as brains to vehicles known as bodies. The bodies find themselves among other structures that are less connected to individual minds. These are far less complex compared to the body or the brain and are governed by algorithmic rule sets. When interpreted via senses these appear in various shapes, sizes, textures, smells etc. localized in space. We will call them Objects and a collection of objects is a World [1].

Objects are experienced and so is world. And like everything else these are subjected to Experiencing - the changing attribute of the Presence. The Experiencing results in a dynamic world that is impermanent. Everything in this world changes, appears and disappears. Some objects change faster than others and some change slowly. Some are complex and some are simple. But all objects are merely forms created out of fundamental structures, that are very simple and do not change much. We see only the forms and label them with names. This creates the familiar representation of a world of names and forms in the Mind.

The world appears on the screen of the Self. The change appears as experiences. The Mind neatly organizes the change into experiences of objects and their interactions. This is all there is as far as direct experience of the world is concerned. It exists and the Self witnesses it, and that’s the full story. Its a game, a play, nothing more.

Afflictions of the Mind : Part-1 (Deception of the senses)

We will now begin a series of articles on afflictions of the Mind. Afflictions are undesirable side effects produced by the highly complex processes that occur in the Mind. While bearing in the mind that the afflictions are also perfect, there is nothing wrong with them and there is no natural law that compels anyone to remove them, we will still try to see what are the possible ways to see them clearly and in case of extremely dysfunctional ones, how one can eradicate them effectively. There are certain tricks that I learned from great masters, that I found work nicely in my experience, however, everyone has a unique Mind and these may or may not work for all. This is not an article on medical/psychological matters, so those who are crazy beyond repair will not find it useful. These afflictions are seen as "normal" by the human society, and are good examples of socially accepted madness. Those who are on the path, know them very well and strive to stay uninfluenced by them.

How can I know that I'm afflicted? Everyone is, don't worry. The telltale sign of afflictions is suffering and bondage. That is the main motivation behind hunting them down. It is not really important to completely cure them, in most cases, simply being aware of them is enough.