Dueling Dual Realities Part 2

Spiritual and Metaphysical Aspects of the Crazy World

Last week, in the first part of this series, I addressed the differing versions of reality being fed by U.S. political and media institutions. In this part-two essay I’ll explore the possibility that there’s a spiritual and metaphysical aspect to the misinformation and conflict roiling through our world.

Hindu philosophy presents the concept of maya which is the idea that the world we see is illusory, that there’s a deeper reality beyond the physical world we experience through our basic senses. Every indigenous tradition I have any familiarity with has deeply-held cultural beliefs that there is more to reality than just the obvious physical plane. For example, the practice of spiritual animal “medicine” is the idea that animals can guide people toward balance and healing. Animals (also trees, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers, etc.) are considered sacred and are often depicted in stories and legends. Aboriginal Australians hold a religio-cultural worldview that has been translated into “Dreamtime” even though the English language and western worldview is insufficient to capture the concept of “everywhen” or the aliveness and flow of relationship and connections throughout all of creation.

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) distinguishes between “The World” and “The Real World.” The World is a construct we create through perceptions and beliefs, and is therefore illusory. It is based in false perception, a place where, “eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely” and mistakes become possible. The Real World, according to ACIM, is also a symbol but it stands for the opposite of the construct we made. The real world holds a, “correction for the sights of fear and sounds of battle” which the world of misperception contains.

Similarly, I believe Jesus was talking about a level of consciousness when he said, “The Kingdom of Heaven is within.”

We humans tend to have fairly rigid vision and a default belief that our perceptions and ways of moving through the world are “right” when actually they’re tremendously limiting. There are multiple intelligences and ways of navigating existence. Consider that whales and dolphins and even dogs can hear far outside the range of humans; butterflies taste with their feet; and sharks can detect electrical currents emitted by fish through an organ called the ampullae of Lorenzini. Quantum science has revealed that everything is in vibration and in fact our physical bodies are made up by empty space right along with solid matter. The evolution of consciousness is ceaseless and influenced by factors beyond physical senses that have yet to be explained.

I’ve now lived long enough to have had many direct experiences of moving between differing realities based on my perceptions. When I first began to sense the illusory quality of the world around me, it rattled me. I’m an environmentalist with a deep love of nature and I’ve had a lifelong commitment to doing what I could to protect and restore the myriad life forms on this rare and precious planet. If much of what I was seeing was illusion did it make any sense to work to protect it?

Over time I’m learning there’s an important subtlety involved, a distinction between illusion and unreal. Consider nightmares. Let’s say you’re dreaming some fearsome monster is chasing you through a dark alley and you can’t get away. You can feel it getting closer and closer. Just as bloody claws reach out to grab you you snap awake! Your heart is racing and you have a tremendous sense of relief realizing it was just a bad dream. The monster didn’t physically exist nor was it chasing you. But the dream did exist and was real.

This reveals a nuanced distinction regarding the nature of maya versus illusion. Illusion is generally used to refer to something that doesn't exist. In contrast, Maya is existent and non-existent at the same time, like a dream. In your mind, the experience of running for your life was absolutely real while the dream was occurring and even your physical body was reacting to it. So, the maya of this dream cannot be called non-existent. Yet, upon awakening, it becomes clear that the events in the dream were an illusion, a world that didn’t actually exist in physical form.