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The World As Experience And Idea

The world is an illusion. This is a view empty space.
held by Vedanta, Sikhism, Buddhism, 5. The field of all possibilities.
Plato, Arthur Schopenhauer, Christian On the level of the consciousness that
Science, and A Course In Miracles. organizes all things, this world is only
Contradicting this view is your own sense another possibility out of an infinite
experience of realness, the constancy of choice. How many worlds with sentient
stimulus, the enduring nature of time and beings exist? Is our universe only an
events. electron in a cosmic atom? Given a field
Which view is correct? The idea of the of infinite choices, how much weight does
illusion or your experience of the one choice hold?
realness? The idea that the world is real can be
This answer proposes an objective argued in the following way.
observer, one who is not part of the 1. What you are experiencing is real to
system that is being observed. Newton you.
held that time is absolute. Einstein When you think of the world as an
held that it is relative to the observer. illusion, a sense of despair arises
Perhaps that same paradigm shift can be because it slights the beauty of your
applied to answering the question of what realness. It is pleasurable to touch and
is real and what is not. hold, to see and hear, to act and change
Those who propose that the world is an things. It is ennobling to see the vast
illusion are correct. sky above your head and feel the wind in
Those who propose that the world is real your hair and hear the squawk of a
are also correct. passing bird. It means much for us to be
The idea that the world is an illusion here and to be alive in this moment.
can be argued in the following way. Neither science nor philosophy can deny
1. You do not see the world as it is. the realness of your experience.
You see the world as you are. And in this context, even your dreams are
This happens in two ways: real enough, because while you are in
One, you can never escape your them, your entire experience is authentic
subjectivity. You may claim that the enough for you. If you are being chased
world is objective, but this is a claim by a lion in your dream, it will feel as
made from the subjective state. Hence, real to you as if you were being chased
if you were to lose your mind, you would by one in the waking state.
also lose the world. Without an 2. Who you are is important to you.
observer, there is no world. With your Your life is important. You desire to be
disappearance, the universe disappears. more than you currently are because you
Does it exist despite you? If you are can feel the vast throb of life within
not there to ask or hear the answer to you expanding ever forward to know more,
the question, it has no meaning. experience more, and touch a fullness not
Two, the world that you see is a direct yet known.
result of your experiences in it. A rock Your past is not just useless memory but
is not just a rock; it is also your a scrapbook of struggle and change,
memory of all rocks seen by you. When triumph and adversity, risk and new
what you see is more complex and learning. Your present is the vividness
engaging, you experience more emotions, of your current experience. Your future
sensations, and ideas about it. Thus, is your promise, to yourself and to the
you never really see anything as it is. world.
You only see it through the lens of your Reality, then, is not fixed. It is an
own thoughts about it. interpretation of consciousness and how
2. All forms will pass away. it is interpreted depends on the inner
Entropy is built into the system. and outer experiences of the observer.
Nothing can escape this iron law of The world you live in is real enough to
nature. Neither beauty nor truth, wealth you as you live it. If this world is an
nor power, genius nor intent ever last. illusion, does it mean that there is a
Death and decay is the lot of everything, really real world, as Plato conjectured.
from atoms to stars, from our own sun to Probably not. If this world is an
the universe itself. However, this illusion, then so, too, are all worlds.
collapse is a dissipation of energy, not And if this world is real, so, too, are
an absence of it. According to the law all worlds.
of conservation of energy, which has Appreciating the miracle of having a
never been refuted, energy can neither be consciousness to live in a world may be
created nor destroyed. What dies, then, all we need to know to live happy,
is the form of things, the structure the fulfilling lives, whether in this world
energy was supporting. or in other worlds which we will
3. The microscopic. transition into after this one.
On the level of atoms, a vast space Consciousness, like the law of
exists between the electrons and the conservation of energy, can neither be
nucleus, and even the subatomic particles created nor destroyed. Where you find
are not solid bits of matter but consciousness, you will also find energy
transient energy forms that appear and structured into the form of a world. And
disappear and reappear again. It is since consciousness never dies but
mainly empty space. appears to only grow increasingly more
4. The macroscopic. refined and sophisticated, worlds, too,
On the level of the cosmos, a vast space probably evolve along similar lines. Are
exists between stars and moons and these worlds illusory or real? They are
planets, gas clouds and nebulas and real enough to those who live in them.
galaxies. The universe, too, is mainly




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