Blog Archive

Thursday 22 January 2015

The Illusions of Humanity

Every day that passes, I realize that my words are wasted on so many people. Not wasted in the sense that they are not worth my words, but wasted in the sense that my words will never be sufficient enough for people to truly feel what I am feeling, or to truly see the genuine desire for peace in my heart. Many of us are constantly misunderstood because of this fact, because the words created by men are not sufficient to express the deep feelings and senses that we experience in every moment.

I feel that because there are so many damaged people, myself included, trust of someone’s words is fleeting. You can say you trust someone, though saying it is really not enough. Trust is something a person can have towards another person, and towards themselves, only if the person is completely and deeply vulnerable. I have not met anyone who is truly and deeply vulnerable with themselves. It seems that they think they are, but when situations arise that can be easily solved by being truly honest and trusting of your own self, there is a total breakdown, and the reality of a situation is covered up. We create these illusions of why things are a certain way, why people are a certain way. We say other people wear masks, we say we wear masks, and this is only half of the truth; we also put masks on other people because we are afraid to see them for who they truly are. Even if the people we force masks on are ripping their masks off, we tend to say “no no, please put your mask back on, I like you better that way”.

I do not want you to think that I am saying that this behavior is bad or wrong, I truly just want to point it out, and possibly come to some sort of realization of why or what this all is. Obviously, this behavior seems to have no real positive effects.

This trust issue, this issue of not being able to see through the trillions of illusions that we create, is a problem on a macro and micro level. There is no real honesty without a complete destruction of the illusions we have created. We live in a world with BILLIONS of people, which means we live in a world with BILLIONS of  egos. These egos are constantly clashing and crashing into each other, creating conflicts and building more illusions to protect themselves from the sometimes harsh realities of our world. There are so many thoughts and ideals that simply do not mesh and that compete with each other. We live in a world full of damaged people who desperately need to trust and be trusted. We live in a world full of scared, weak, desensitized and disillusioned people. This is obvious, and we can see this clearly by simply observing how people treat one another, how they look at one another, how they speak to one another. You can also see this in extreme action by watching the news, or watching hollywood movies that seem to be filled with more and more propaganda as the years pass. This rise of propaganda in the media is used on the masses as ideological and commercial warfare. This warfare continues to poison the billions of minds on the planet, deepening the illusions that have already been created from our direct experiences and in turn creating a divide that seems so real. This propaganda is also getting worse in religions such as Islam, Christianity and Judaism. We see that these religions tend to preach two opposite sets of ideals. One that promotes peace and unity, and another that promotes war and division. This is proof that these religions have been infiltrated and is being used as a major tool to control and mold the illusions of the masses.

Let me change the word from illusion to insecurity, since in my mind, these two words can describe one another. On my journey thus far, I have not met anyone personally who did not have any insecurities whatsoever. I had a conversation with my wife about this, I was curious to know what she thought about it, and she came to the same conclusion. We then came to the conclusion that the only people that are out there that possibly have little to no insecurities are the spiritual teachers that we hear about, the men and women who literally dedicate their lives to self growth and to the seeking of universal truths; let us call these people the seekers.The seekers have become hyper aware of their reactions and to their conditioning and have found ways to destroy their illusion through diligent observation of themselves and their environments. This practice seems to have cured them of the human illness of an overactive ego and in turn has allowed them to curb their insecurity, and in some cases completely accept things as they are. The seekers have gotten to a point where the illusions are no longer necessary, because they are no longer afraid of what is really there to see. I do not think that the seeker gets to this point easily, nor do I think that once at that point it gets easier. In my opinion, and from what I feel about all this, I believe that it probably gets much more difficult at that exact point where your illusions are shattered, when you have decided and accepted to take off your own mask and the mask of everyone else you encounter. I am sure that once this is destroyed, there are many temptations to build the illusion right back up. I can say this with confidence because I was close, I do not know how close, but I know I was in the vicinity.

I felt a shattering of my illusion when I was young, about 14 years of age. I did not care for the things that the others around me cared so much for. I did not get attached to the material things that my friends back then seemed to obsess over. I did not want to get distracted, and there were moments of complete clarity; this is when I would write. I cannot say that these moments lasted long, nor can I say that I controlled when they came and went, but I know they were there, I know that I was constantly in and out of the illusion.

There is one specific memory from my childhood that sticks out for me, a memory that I wish to share with you. I would like to share this memory because I believe it will give you an idea of where my mind has been for most of my life and will hopefully give you a better understanding of where the thought process behind this article comes from.
My parents sent my brother and I to a religious summer camp when I was around 7 years old. I did not grow up in a religious household and neither of us knew much about Islam at that point, nor could we even read Arabic (we still can’t, we never learned), but I think my parents wanted us to experience a little bit of that world. To be honest, most of the memory of that camp is gone, I do not remember much. I do remember not wanting to be there, and feeling trapped. I also remember feeling as though something was there with me, protecting me from these other men who seemed so bent on conditioning me into a belief in something I did not understand. I remember getting a very bad headache a few days after we arrived at the camp (I used to get lots of them, and still do until today), and the men at the camp allowed me to go to my bunk earlier than the other campers to rest my head in a dark room. I layed in the bunk and tried to fall asleep, at the moment where I started to feel like it was hopeless, a light appeared in the room. At first, I thought someone hit the light switch, but I remember looking up at the light fixture and seeing that it was still shut off. With this light appeared a man with a beard wearing a white robe. I remember looking down at his feet and thinking “where are his shoes?”. The man was literally surrounded by light, and he seemed to glow. I remember thinking that his skin was glowing, that his skin looked so soft and healthy. He came to me, and lifted me out of bed. He held me in his arms, with my head resting on his shoulder. I remember that I loved how he smelt, I cannot describe the smell but it was like nothing my senses have ever experienced before and not again until 2 years ago (this experience, and the one I had two years ago were very similar in feeling but not in sight). He held me, that is all he did. I felt so comforted, more than I had ever felt before. He did not say anything, he did not rub my back or my head, but a few moments passed, and my headache was completely gone. He laid me back down in the bunk, and he was gone as quickly as he had appeared. The room was dark again, and I felt better than I had since I arrived at the camp a few days earlier.  

This was an experience that seems to have shaped much of my life. I understood that this presence was not an actual human being that came into the room, but rather something from somewhere else. Something that was always there, watching over me, protecting me. I knew that this was not necessarily a man with a beard, and that I was seeing what it thought I wanted to see. I knew that this energy, this power, would guide me for the rest of my journey in this life. I did not make any religious connections, nor did I try to name my vision or feelings. I just knew that everything was going to fall into place. The rest of the time at the camp is a blur. I do remember winning an award for being able to memorize some verses from the Quran. I do not remember even learning them in the first place, but I still have them memorized to this day.

Now, over 20 years later, I could say that I have more clarity, but I also have heavier illusions. Meaning, my clarity is deep, but my illusions are many and hard to cut through. When I am finally able to drop it all, I see things as they are, and I feel a deep love and sorrow at the same time. It is very difficult to describe in words. Some people say that this clarity is called enlightenment, and maybe that is what it is, but I have also heard people say that once you reach this point it is a pure and solid feeling of love, acceptance and understanding. I disagree. That is still an illusion. There is darkness behind the illusion, as much as there is light, for without one, there would be no other. There is sorrow behind the illusion, just as there is love, for again, without one, how would we feel the other? The problem with our illusion is that it places a feeling like sorrow in a negative spectrum and associates it with density. The problem with our illusion is that we believe that darkness always carries negativity. I have heard many say that what we resist persists, and this is so true for our illusions of darkness and negativity. It is fear that puts the darkness in this dense place. It is our egos that create an illusion because we are too scared to face the reality of our World.

The veil is lifting, sometimes it drops down a little, and then is lifted a little higher, but it is lifting more than it has ever before on this planet. Many are clinging on to their illusions, holding on and creating heavier and heavier masks, ones that they think will protect them from their fears. So many are feeding their egos so much that they believe that they are doing the opposite, the illusions are very strong at this time in our existence, hence the suicides and addictions that are on the rise, hence the rising of conflicts across the globe and the tension that everyone seems to be feeling..

It is time for many of us to break free from the ones that refuse to remove their masks and in turn create heavier ones for us to wear. The ones who can truly see, and feel, need to break free so that they can continuously grow, and so that the veil can continuously lift steadily. For if you get stuck in this illusion, there will come a time, sooner than you may think, where your illusion will become a hell that you have created...and that is when you will realize how important it was for you to do the work...to seek...

We are seekers, and we will finally find the darkness and the light that exist behind the illusions.