Monday, 25 January 2021

IS LIFE AN ILLUSION?



Is life an illusion?

1. EmptyHub (If everything is just an illusion) refers to the parable of Jesus "about a son who leaves his father's home, squanders his wealth, returns destitute and poor, only to be loved even more... 

"To put it another way, one has to pass through the false in order to know the true."

The son learns to be part of 'God' rather than an individual selfish self.

 As Jesus said: "I and the father are one".


2. Alexi Helligar (If everything is just an illusion) refers to the 'zero state' of 'self'.

"Living beings resist the zero state so they can experience enjoyment out of what is essentially nothingness."

3. p3ndulum (If everything is just an illusion) refers to our possible illusions about our 'loved one'.

"We don't get to see who is truly there in front of us because we've painted them in a hue in an effort to fit them into our paradigm of what we believe a 'loving' relationship should be/look like."



4. There is a belief that if we can detach ourself from our sense of being an individual self, then we are detached from physical and emotional discomforts.

5. The philosopher George Berkeley argued that a thing only exists as an idea in someone's mind. 

Quantum theory tells us that an unobserved small object exists only in an unpredictable state, with no defined location or motion until the moment it is observed.


6. Socrates and Plato argued that beyond what we think is real there lies a world of 'perfect' forms. 

"Everything that we see is just a shade, an imitation of how things truly are." 

10 mind-blowing theories.

In other words, the material world as it seems to us is not the real world.

We should see the difference between 'vulgar lust' and 'love for the divine'.

7. According to the Taoists: "We are asked to keep our awareness in two places at once. 

"There is no self, yet I exist as a self. 

"Laozi says: live in the world of manifest reality... but remain aware of the formless, remain aware of the state that is beyond desire. 

"Be in the world, but not of the world."

Laozi and Quantum Physics .


8. So, some philosophers and scientists believe that the "physical world" may be an illusion.

In the Taoist book Zhuangzi, by Zhuang Zhou, we read:

"Once upon a time, Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily enjoying himself. 

"He did not know that he was Zhou. 

"Suddenly he awoke, and was palpably Zhou. 

"He did not know whether he was Zhou, who had dreamed of being a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that he was Zhou. 

For the Hindus, Brahman (God) is everything, and is both in the world and not in the world, at the same time.

Hinduism



9. Stav Strashkothe First Ever Zionist Androgynous Model is made out of tiny particles which can act as matter and anti-matter.

Everything is made out of tiny things called particles.

A particle called the Weyl fermion has no mass.

It is empty of matter.

It is a basic building block of matter, even more fundamental than the electron.

The Weyl fermion can act as matter and anti-matter simultaneously.

dailymail.

0 = +X -X



Stav Strashko can be both nothing and something at the same time.

Stav Strashko can be both male and female at the same time.



Everything has its opposite - left and right, happy and sad, love and hate, inside and outside...

Every particle (the matter that the universe is made of) has its antiparticle (the antimatter that the universe is also made of).

Physicists at Princeton University have observed a particle that behaves both like matter and antimatter.

In other words, the scientists have observed a particle that is its own antiparticle.

Particle observed, both matter & antimatter



Matter is a mirror image of antimatter.

There is a belief that it is our minds that create matter.

'0' can become something.

How might things come into existence?

A mathematical equation shows us how it may work.

0 = +X -X

+X is matter (particles)

-X is anti-matter (anti-particles)


gourmandelle.com

Think of the TAOIST idea of YIN and YANG.

Let us say that YIN represents mainly minus numbers and YANG represents mainly the plus numbers.

The Buddhists say that you cannot have Nirvana without Samsara.

A good game of golf involves a LITTLE bit of Nirvana and a LITTLE bit of Samsara?


Photo from Photobucket

10. Let's look at Taoism.

1. The Force

Consider Luke Skywalker and how Obi-wan Kenobi taught him about "the Force".

Luke had to avoid being distracted by things like fear and anger.

He had to learn about spontaneity.

On one occasion, Luke was trying, without success, to avoid laser blasts from a 'remote'.

When Obi-wan Kenobi placed a helmet on Luke's head so he couldn't be distracted, he easily deflected the remote's laser blasts.

The idea is that when you are aware of the 'Tao' and feel 'the force', you can flow with it, and the right action appears for itself, spontaneously.

(More here: http://www.exn.ca/starwars/taoism.cfm / http://www.belief )


The economy does not work when things are out of balance.

2. What are the essentials of Taoism?

(http://www.godquest.org/taoism.htm / Http://www.crystalinks.com/taoism.html)

Some Taoists and Christians and others believe that bliss can be achieved when:

1. One is compassionate

2. One is moderate (Avoid large numbers?)

3. One is humble (Avoid large numbers?)

4. Everything is in balance (+ X - X rather than +X - 1000X?)

5. One is in tune with the Holy Spirit or the Tao or whatever one wants to call it. One goes with the flow.

6. One avoids the use of force; one avoids pitting one's will against the universe.

..

The Christians talk about God’s spirit.

God nourishes us.

The Taoists talk about the Tao being a force that flows through everything. 

The Tao nourishes us.


healmypet.com.

3. The Tao and Yin and Yang:

When the Tao is in balance one can be happy. (+ X - X rather than +X - 1000X?)

There is Yin and there is Yang (just as there is black and white, up and down, male and female).

'When they are equally present, all is calm. 

'When one is outweighed by the other, there is confusion and disarray.

'The Tao surrounds everyone and one must listen to find enlightenment.'

True Taoism does not get bogged down with theology. "The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao."

Taoists love their enemies. "I am good to the man who is good to me, likewise, I am also good to the bad man."


The USA's Phoenix programme (left) involved torturing and killing civilians. The USA's ISIS force is also going to extremes. www.thesleuthjournal.com

4. Wu wei is action through inaction; ‘a practice of minimal action, particularly minimal violent action’. 

Don’t overdo the antibiotics or the pesticides. 

Don’t bomb your enemies.

Consider the lilies.

Don't force yourself or others to be compassionate. Be spontaneous.

Genuine love is spontaneous love.


The USA is out of balance. www.youtube.com

"The Master does not see evil as a force to resist, but simply as an opaqueness, a state of self-absorption that is in disharmony with the universal process, so that, as with a dirty window, the light can't shine through. 

"This freedom from moral categories allows him his great compassion for the wicked and the selfish" - Stephen Mitchell

"The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. 

"It embodies the harmony of opposites (i.e. there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.)"



5. Henry C K Liu wrote in the Asia Times about Taoism.

(http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EH01Ad01.html ).

Where does evil come from?

There can be no ‘good’ without ‘evil’.

"Controlled quantities of the bad can be good. 

"Excessive amounts of the good can be bad. 

"Poison kills. But when handled properly, it can cure diseases. 

"Without poison, there can be no medicine.

"To employ poison to attack poison is a Taoist principle."

The secret is to avoid extremes.


Americans carrying out torture in Vietnam.

How should we act?

We should avoid producing unintended consequences.

"Not taking premature or unnecessary actions keeps all of one's options open, so that the most appropriate action remains available. 

"Actions always elicit reactions. 

"Each action taken provokes reactions from all quarters that, taken together, are always more powerful than the precipitous action itself. It is the ultimate definition of the inescapable law of unintended consequences."

"To follow the dao (path) of life is to go with the natural flow of life and to avoid going against it.

"The ethical theories of Taoism lean toward passive resistance, believing that evil, by definition, will ultimately destroy even itself without undue interference.

"Yet it would be a mistake to regard Taoism as fatalistic and pessimistic, instead of the ultimate sophistication in optimism that it is.

"Only by not applying effort can one achieve that state in which nothing is not attainable effortlessly.

"A little ambition is a good thing. Total elimination, even of undesirables, is an extreme solution, and it is therefore self-defeating.

"Life is a prison from which one can escape only if one does not try to escape. It is the desire to escape that makes a place a prison, and the desire to return that makes it a home. Home is not where one is, it is where one wants to return."

Photograph: Seyllou

6. Taoism and other religions.

The following comes from: http://www.jadedragon.com/archives/tao_heal/teach01.html

From Taoism: happiness comes from helping others; wealth comes from giving to others. 

"Love the world as yourself; then you can care for all things."

From Buddhism: "Set your heart on doing good. Do it over and over again, and you will be filled with joy." 

Buddha: "See yourself in others. Then whom can you hurt? What harm can you do?"

From Islam: "There is a reward for your treatment of every living thing." Muhammad also said: "None of you is a believer until you like for others what you like for yourself."

From Christianity: "Do unto others as you would have them do to you."

Veritopian refers to Yin & Yang Mathematicshttp://everythingforever.com/st_math.htm


Robert Lanza from North Carolina

11. Professor Robert Lanza believes that Death is an illusion.

He believes that it is our minds that create space and time.

He believes that Life creates the Universe.



Robert Lanza and Deepak Chopra, in an article entitled Evolution Reigns, but Darwin Outmoded write:

"Darwin's theory of evolution is an enormous over-simplification.

It's helpful if you want to connect the dots and understand the interrelatedness of life on the planet - and it’s simple enough to teach to children between recess and lunch.

"But it fails to capture the driving force and what’s really going on."



Lanza believes that until you observe the sky as blue and the girl as pretty, everything exists in a state of probability.

But wait a moment.

Some people would say that the sky would exist even if no one was observing it.

Some people would say that our universe existed before people came into existence.

So, some people will not like Lanza's ideas.

Biocentrism Demystified: A Response to Deepak Chopra and Robert Lanza.



Lanza believes that there are many universes.

Lanza explains that everything which can possibly happen is happening at some point across these multiverses.

So, you may think you have died in one universe, but you are still alive in another?

Lanza says that that when we die our life becomes a 'perennial flower that returns to bloom in the multiverse.'

Untitled
By maria dupovkina

Lanza writes: 'Life is an adventure that transcends our ordinary linear way of thinking.

"When we die, we do so not in the random billiard-ball-matrix but in the inescapable-life-matrix.'

Lanza refers to the famous double-slit experiment involving a particle and two slits in a barrier.

When the scientist is watching, the particle goes through one slit or the other.

But, if the scientist is not watching, the particle acts like a wave and can go through both slits at the same time.

This suggests that the behaviour of the particle is decided by the mind of the scientist.

Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe.

Summer rain
By Valery Titievsky

Lanza's Answers to Basic Questions:

What created the Big Bang?

Answer : No ‘dead’ universe ever existed outside of mind (“Nothingness” is a meaningless concept)

Which came first, rocks or life?

Answer: Time is a form of animal intuition.

What IS this universe?

Answer: An active life-based process


This is reflected in the seven principles of biocentrism:

1st Principle: What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness.

2nd Principle: Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined. They are different sides of the same coin and can’t be divorced from one another.

3rd Principle: The behavior of matter is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer.

4th Principle: Without consciousness, “matter” dwells in an undetermined state of probability.

5th Principle: The structure of the universe is explainable only through biocentrism. It’s fine-tuned for life; life creates the universe, not the other way around.

6th Principle: Time doesn’t have a real existence outside of animal intuition.

7th Principle: Space, like time, isn’t an object or thing that has an independent reality.

Robert Lanza, M.D. – BIOCENTRISM » Religion vs. Science


Lanza on God:

Life and consciousness represents one side of the equation, matter and energy the other.

They can't be divorced; split them and the reality is gone...


How can entangled particles be instantaneously connected on opposite sides of the galaxy as if there's no space or time between them?

And how can events in the present affect those in the past?

Recently, scientists sent particles into an apparatus and showed they could retroactively change something that had already happened in the past 

(Science 2007).

Biocentrism says these phenomena occur because space and time aren't just "out there," but are tools of our mind... 

God, too, lives in action and is a relational concept, both existing and not-existing at the same time.

Robert Lanza, M.D.: Biocentrism and the Existence of God

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Monday, 4 January 2021

Is Reality an Illusion? | Jan Westerhoff




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Sunday, 10 February 2019

TIME IS AN ILLUSION? CHRISTMAS HUMPHREYS



Some people experience deja vu, and some people experience premonitions.



"Can the present influence the past? Some physicists believe the answer is yes.

"When a scientist makes a decision in the present about how to measure a particle, this can influence that particle - in the past."

Can the Present Affect the Past? 

.
Lerina Garcia.

In 2008, Lerina Garcia, aged 41, related that she had woken up one morning to find that the world around her had changed.

Lerina Garcia: Did She Wake Up In Another Universe?

Lerina concluded that she had awoken in a parallel universe - a world in which her life had been altered by small decisions of her past.

Lerina Garcia Gordo: The Woman From A Parallel Universe.

The first change that she noticed was that the sheets on her bed were different.

She wrote: "When I got to my office, it was not my office."


Art photography by Stewart Baillie.

Lerina remembered her sister having had surgery on her arm, but the rest of her family, including her sister, remembered no such thing.

Lerina found herself still with her ex-boyfriend, who she remembered leaving many months before.

Her new boyfriend, Augustin, was gone altogether.

Lerina Garcia: Did She Wake Up In Another Universe?



"In quantum mechanics we discover that the entire universe is actually a series of probabilities.

"Nobel Prize winning father of quantum mechanics Neils Bohr said that 'everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.'"

use-your-mind-to-change-reality-it-is-easier-than-you-think

"You attract to yourself those things and circumstances that are in vibrational harmony with your dominant frequency, which is itself determined by your dominant mental attitude, habitual thoughts and beliefs."

Thought Power - Your Thoughts Create Your Reality

...

According to Robert Lanza:

Your consciousness will always be in the present - balanced between the infinite past and the indefinite future - moving intermittently between realities along the edge of time, having new adventures and meeting new (and rejoining old) friends.

Five Reasons You Won't Die - Robert Lanza - BIOCENTRISM




Julian Barbour (above) is a British physicist.

Julian Barbour's 1999 book The End of Time advances the view that time does not exist as anything other than an illusion.

He argues that we have no evidence of the past other than our memory of it.

And no evidence of the future other than our belief in it.

...

Julian Barbour describes time as "a succession of pictures, a succession of snapshots, changing continuously one into another. 

I'm looking at you; you're nodding your head. Without that change, we wouldn't have any notion of time."

"Isaac Newton," Barbour noted, "insisted that even if absolutely nothing at all happened, time would be passing, and that I believe is completely wrong."

To Barbour, change is real, but time is not. 

Time is only a reflection of change. 

From change, our brains construct a sense of time as if it were flowing.

The Illusion of Time: What's Real? - Space.com

...

"Change merely creates an illusion of time, with each individual moment existing in its own right, complete and whole."

He calls these moments "Nows".

It is all an illusion: there is no motion and no change.


"Particles are rooted in a deeper level of reality where time and space have no meaning."

Why Space and Time Might Be an Illusion | HuffPost

McTaggart

The philosopher J. M. E. McTaggart reached a similar conclusion in his 1908 "The Unreality of Time."

McTaggart concluded the world was composed of nothing but souls, each soul related to one or more of the others by love.

McTaggart believed each of the souls (which are identified with human beings) to be immortal and defended the idea of reincarnation.

McTaggart held the view that all selves are unoriginated and indestructible.[7]


Morton Gillespie.

"Everything that has ever been and ever will be is happening RIGHT NOW."

Time is NOT real 


Optimists (Indonesia)

Two psychologists at the University of Victoria, New Zealand, have said: ‘Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition.

According to Pyschologist Maryanne Garry: ‘We realized that the effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think.’

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2156431/Why-optimists-usually-win-Simply-thinking-positive-thoughts-lead-people-overcome-tough-challenges.html#ixzz1xHO7FlFW

Of course there are positive and negative aspects of this.

If we anticipate having a happy holiday, we are more likely to have a happy holiday.

If we believe a placebo is effective, we are more likely to be cured by it.

If we believe that there is no God, we are less likely to notice the evidence for an after life.


Indonesians expecting to be happy?

Dr Garry said: ‘Recent research suggests that some of psychological science’s most intriguing findings may be driven, at least in part, by suggestion and expectancies.

‘For example, a scientist, who knows what the hypothesis of an experiment is, might unwittingly lead subjects to produce the hypothesized effect - for reasons that have nothing to do with the experiment itself.’

If the media has suggested to us that Bashar Assad is a bad person, we are more likely to believe the anti Assad propaganda.

Walk through the jungle expecting to see snakes and you may well see them.

Walk through the jungle not expecting to see snakes and you probably won't see any.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2156431/Why-optimists-usually-win-Simply-thinking-positive-thoughts-lead-people-overcome-tough-challenges.html#ixzz1xHO7FlFW

Voltaire was a pessimist.

Buddha believed that we can be rid of suffering.


Optimistic Indonesians, influenced by 1500 years of Hinduism-Buddhism.

Voltaire, like Buddha, could see that there is suffering in this world.

"Imagine the situation of a Pope's daughter aged fifteen, who in three months had undergone poverty and slavery, had been raped nearly every day, had seen her mother cut into four pieces, had undergone hunger and war, and was now dying of the plague in Algiers." 

(Voltaire, Candide, Chapter 12)

"Do you believe," said Candide, "that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?"

"Do you believe," said Martin, "that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?"


Voltaire appears to be pessimistic about human nature.

But, Candide was fiction and not necessarily a true reflection of all that goes on in the world.


More Indonesians

But, if hawks may not be capable of fast change, what about humans?

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) said in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:

"Natural history tells us of a haphazard and casual transformation of species over hundreds of millions of years of devouring and being devoured...

"But the history of the mind offers a different picture.

"Here the miracle of reflecting consciousness intervenes."

In other words, some beings may be becoming more kindly.


Optimists or pessimists?

Physicist David Bohm believes that life and consciousness are present in varying degrees in all matter, including supposedly inanimate matter such as electrons or plasmas.

He suggests that evolutionary developments do not emerge in a random fashion.

("David Bohm and the Implicate Order" by David Pratt)


Merak, Indonesia.

Happiness is about forgetting your own happiness and being part of a happy team?

Standford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram believes in the holographic nature of reality.

Every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole.

In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter reality.

What we see as reality is a canvas where we can draw any picture we want.


Some people manage to be happy in spite of poverty.

The Buddhists believe that what we are thinking now, is what we will become.

Research has suggested that Buddhists are able to get their brains to feel happiness.

According to Owen Flanagan, professor of philosophy at DukeUniversity in North Carolina, Buddhists appear to be able to stimulate a part of their brain which produces positive emotions and a feeling of well being.

Writing in New Scientist, Professor Flanagan referred to findings of a study by Richard Davidson, of the University of Wisconsin, who used scanners to analyse regions of a Buddhist's brain.

Parts of Buddhists brains, linked to happiness, appear to "light up" consistently

"The most reasonable hypothesis is there is something about conscientious Buddhist practice that results in the kind of happiness we all seek," Davidson writes.

(Happiness. A Buddhist perspective)


Happy lepers.

Helping unhappy people to be happy brings happiness.

A good doctor entering a ward full of sick children does not allow himself to feel depressed.

The good doctor gets on with trying to make the children happy.

Tibetan Bodhisattva Langri Tangpa wrote:

Whenever I see unfortunate beings

Oppressed by evil and violent suffering,

May I cherish them as I had found

A rare and precious treasure.




The good Buddhist empties himself (or herself) of egotism, and is therefore not going to be offended by insults.

When others out of jealousy

Harm me or insult me,

May I take defeat upon myself

And offer them the victory


(The Buddhist Way To Happiness )

Strive for the happiness of the team, and not for your own happiness, and that will make you happy.


The happy person is the one who forgets about his own individual happiness and concentrates on making others happy.

(Buddhism - Jodo Shinsu - What Is Happiness?)


Thai people - are they happier than Americans? Photo byTevaprapas Makklay

Christmas Humphreys, 1901-83, formerly a judge in London, listed the Twelve Principles of Buddhism. (Twelve Principles of Buddhism By Christmas Humphreys)

1. Learn how to save yourself by using direct and personal experience.

2. There is continual change, a continual cycle involving birth and death.

Consciousness is continuous.

It is forever looking for new kinds of self-expression.

Life is a continous flow.


If you know there is a tsunami coming, don't stay on the beach guarding your possessions.

If you cling on to things, you will suffer, because you are resisting the flow.



3. There is only one 'ultimate reality'.

It does not change.

It is beyond our understanding.

We are all linked to it.


We are all part of the one team.


Deja Vu. Away from the corruptions of the city.

4. What we are now is the result of our past thoughts.

We are the creator of our circumstances.

By right thought and right action we can gradually purify ourselves and eventually reach enlightenment and Nirvana and beyond.



Nice.

5. We are happiest as a happy team.

We are all inter-linked and should feel compassion for everything from trees to Thais and from jaguars to Jews.

Compassion is the "Law of laws".


6. Imagine we have an urge to win at golf by cheating.

Imagine we have an urge to be the hero of the football match, by monopolising the ball.

Suffering is caused by such wrong urges.


Indonesians

7. To end suffering, we should have

(1) Right Views,

(2) Right Aims or Motives,

(3) Right Speech,

(4) Right Acts,

(5) Right Livelihood,

(6) Right Effort,

(7) Right Concentration or mind-development,


(8) "Cease to do evil, learn to do good, cleanse your own heart: this is the Teaching of the Buddhas".


Malta.

8. Nirvana, the extinction of the limitations of selfhood, is attainable on earth.

"Look within; thou art Buddha".

9. Follow the path between the opposites, avoiding all extremes.

10. Meditation helps us to refrain from mental and emotional attachment to "the passing show".

11. The Buddha said: "Work out your own salvation" using your intuition.

Each man suffers the consequences of his own acts, and learns thereby, while helping his fellow man to the same deliverance.


12. Buddhism does not deny the existence of God or soul, though it places its own meaning on these terms. Buddhism has no dogmas, and points to man alone as the creator of his present life and sole designer of his destiny.


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