I loved "The Matrix." It's an entertaining movie with a compelling plot line.
Eventually, Neo finds Morpheus, and is then told that reality is actually very different from what he, and most other people, perceives it to be.
Morpheus tells Neo that human existence is merely a facade. In reality, humans are being ‘farmed’ as a source of energy by a race of sentient, malevolent machines. People actually live their entire lives in pods, wtih their brains being fed sensory stimuli which give them the illusion of leading ‘ordinary’ lives. Morpheus explains that, up until then, the “reality” perceived by Neo is actually “a computer-generated dreamworld…a neural interactive simulation” called the matrix.
This notion that the everyday world, which seems so real to us, actually is a shadow, maya, illusion, a reflection of some higher reality, lies at the core of almost all religions and mystical philosophies.
It's older than Plato, though his Allegory of the Cave described this concept in a fashion that influenced a lot of thinkers who followed him. We don't see the Sun of Reality directly, only illusory shadows cast on a wall. Those who discern the truth aren't believed; that bright sun is too uncomfortable for people used to living in caves.
Spirituality is a search for something more real than the world of our bodily perceptions.
This is akin to the goal of science, but with an important twist: religions, spiritual practices, and mystical faiths generally believe that the illusion of the physical world can't be seen through by looking more deeply into it, by understanding more fully how materiality is put together and functions.
Rather, a cosmic illusion is assumed akin to the philosophy of "The Matrix."
There are forces afoot that are dedicated to keeping us immersed in unreality. Penetrating the illusion is difficult, if not impossible, unaided. We need a guide, a guru, a master, a savior, someone who can simultaneously communicate with us at our deluded human level while also being privy to secrets that transcend everyday understanding.
But what if the biggest illusion is the idea of a cosmic illusion? What if fear of death, yearning for perfect happiness, and other human cognitive propensities are how a higher reality has come to be imagined?
Zen speaks of how first there is a mountain, then there isn't, and then there is. Similarly, perhaps what enlightenment truly consists of is first believing in the reality of the physical world, then doubting this, and then embracing this world again -- albeit from an enriched perspective.
By "enriched," I mean this: most people take this world for granted. They either don't ponder their place in it very deeply, or assume that Earth is a temporary stepping-off place for an eternity in heaven, paradise, nirvana, the lap of God, or such.
However, discarding the illusion of an illusion after believing strongly in it brings us back to everyday life with a fresh perspective. Now we look upon everyday life with new eyes. We aren't trying to look past or through this world.
We're content to look at it. To be an integral part of it, no longer feeling like a stranger in a strange land who belongs elsewhere.
One of my favorite churchless affirmations is:
I'm flawed and fucked-up, just like the world is.
We belong to each other, the world and me.
Straining for personal perfection is exhausting. Seeking to know a perfect reality is senseless. If you find it, good for you. Be sure to tell me all about it. But when you do, it'll be while you're here in this flawed and fucked-up world, along with me.
I have a theory about this: the feeling that things are illusory is a side-effect of the various perceptual and cognitive feedback loops in our brain. In other words, we can feel, at some non-conscious level, that by the time we perceive something, some time has passed and processing has occurred.
Hence, along with the experience, comes a feeling that it's not quite right.
And then we just project this and expand upon it and, viola, Maya!
Posted by: Steven Sashen | December 19, 2011 at 10:06 PM
I have never fealt at ease with Plato and his Cave Allegory, and I later came to find he was himself influenced by Eastern philosophy with its assumptions about Maya, and I further found out that this concept bascially stems from patriarchal thinking, because you find the roots of meaning by unconvering the meanings of the terms they wrote--such as 'Maya', and maya is connected with the feminine, and shot through Eastern mystical theology, and Plato, etc is this disdain for nature and the body which is considered to be connected with the 'secuctive feminine' and a trap. A trap for the male 'hero' who is seeking escape into his bream of everlasting bliss and so on.
However, I do feel that nature can be seen different by different people and moods. For example, two children---one from a time when there wasn't all of this gadgetry, computer games, all the vast sttimulation avalable and pushed on the kids now, and a child from a time when they would play and use their imagination more. Put them both in the countryside. How do their perceptions and feelings compare if we could look through each others eyes and feel through their senses. I am betting the computer kid would be bored, and the landscape would look dull and flat, whilst for the other kid--far more exciting and full of possibilities.
Another example, taking psychedelics in the countryside and all of a sudden you are in a garden of eden, everything is alive and full of spirits. This experience integrated opens you up to a fuller experience of nature. This is what happened to me when I was 15!
Posted by: Juliano | December 20, 2011 at 04:14 AM
Technically, nothing is flawed or "fucked-up" until compared with or measured by what-should-be.
Posted by: cc | December 20, 2011 at 08:55 AM
cc, true, and our emotions are a pretty good indication of how that comparison is being carried out by our brains. How many people go through life without ever feeling irritation, anxiety, worry, fear, hatred, frustration, or other emotions which say (or scream) "something is wrong!"
Would we want it any other way? I sure wouldn't. A tsunami drowns tens of thousands of people. A young child is born horribly deformed. A war kills countless innocent victims. Our heart goes out to these people. We feel deeply human. If we didn't, we'd be robots.
Yes, this world is fucked-up. But it's the only world we have, so in that sense there's no comparison possible with what-should-be.
Our emotions though... they make the comparison naturally for us.
Posted by: Brian Hines | December 20, 2011 at 10:38 AM
Nothing in itself is "wrong", but in terms of what we want and don't want for ourselves as individuals and as a species, there's more than enough to get upset about.
Posted by: cc | December 20, 2011 at 11:42 AM