Life is an Illusion

Illusion

Saint Vyasa in his epic tale, The Mahabharata depicted a human being through an amazingly creative medium using symbolic representation such as chariot, horses, reins etc. The chariot signifies the human body, the horses – the senses, reins – your ability to control your desires, Arjuna – the mind, Krishna – intellect. The chariot i.e. the human body is designed to be in action, Arjuna i.e. the mind is a passenger who is designed to get carried away by the emotions unless controlled by the charioteer, Krishna, the subtle intellect through a firm hold of the reins to control the senses.

Saint Vyasa has cleverly revealed the intrinsic purpose of life and how to achieve it with this powerful yet simple visual representation. Our life, from birth to death is an accumulation of experiences and we all make our own story through our interpretations. The story is formed based on how we see, hear or feel about each occurrence in life. Our emotions are at play all times. We see each occurrence through the lens of emotions and react externally in our environment based on emotional interpretation.

Greed, anger, envy, jealousy, pride, lust; all these emotions play a significant role in our actions. If your thought process is governed by pride, the likelihood of arrogance showing up in your inter-actions is very high. Similarly, if the underlying thought is that of jealousy or envy, then comparison and/or revenge may show up outwardly. Each time you allow these emotions to influence your thought process; they rule your actions, shape your personality, shape your relationships and shape your life.

My younger son reminded me of a nursery rhyme that aptly and profoundly enumerates the art of living;
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream,
Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream!”

The human body is designed to be in action and hence, it needs a place to play and enact. The universe is like our personal playground. All the elements of Creation i.e. natural resources, solar system, plants, animals and human beings are mediums for your experiments and ways to be constructively occupied, where there are innumerable options and opportunities to contribute through our various gifts of art, music, science, medicine etc. Human beings are the only Creation that have the option and opportunity to choose how and where to act. Unlike animals and plants, human beings are not programmed in their reactions. They are gifted with a certain type of intelligence and way of perception but they reserve the choice of reaction to their circumstances.

Essentially, if you don’t know where you will be born, the type of intelligence will be gifted with, the type perception lens you will be born with and you don’t know when and where you are going to die; what is it that you can determine – control over your reactions and actions. Unlike other living creatures, human beings have been gifted with free will to decide. Situations, opportunities, circumstances, people come our way, what we do with them is our choice. We are born to contribute through our intelligence and skill as we learn to understand and control our emotions and behavior and act freely in this world; yet we complicate life by falling prey to our emotions and suffering. Do we suffer and how. We spend our life trying to unravel this mystery called life. If we simply allow ourselves to follow the design of creation by using our intelligence and our preceptors, with control over our emotions, our life becomes effortless.

“A house must be built on solid foundations if it is to last. The same principle applies to man; otherwise he too will sink back into the soft ground and becomes swallowed up by the world of illusion.” Sai Baba

The intellect i.e. the tool of discrimination is given to choose (think and decide) to act effortlessly and contribute effectively through our vehicle of action, the body. The more you develop or use your intellect, the easier it gets to live life. Often you will observe a pattern of occurrences. Events of a similar nature occur till you do not learn to understand and control the underlying emotion that is causing the series of events and grow from there on. We suffer due to our emotional attachment to people, things or outcome of our actions.

Essentially, all the events and circumstances occur in your life in different shapes and sizes but with similar messages simply to make you evolve. As you understand and reduce unnecessary interpretations and the impact of emotions such as fear, greed, lust, anger, expectations, attachment etc on your life, the higher is your ability to see the meaning of life.

We are born through our parents who impart life and values to us. Parents are meant to be mediums of giving life, take responsibility for the life that they have brought into this world until the child is an independent adult. However, in this process of fulfilling their duties, they get emotionally attached and build expectations from their children. A sense of duty comes towards your parents because you take so much from them. Your family members are called “relations” because your birth is related to them. It is these emotional expectations that give colour to our life and add emotional conflict to our lives and cause suffering. Similarly, circumstances are also part of this process of evolution.

If you look at life as a tap of water and yourself as a pot; you can sit under the tap upside down and let all the water flow past or sit under the tap facing up and fill your pot with water. The more you choose to learn and receive from each situation and opportunity, the more you enjoy life.

An illusion is a distortion of the senses and illusions distort reality. Because we live our life through our senses and interpret every event and circumstance through our senses of hearing, feeling etc, we create illusions around ourselves and are unable to elevate beyond to just act freely and fearlessly. If you look closely at yourself and reflect on your actions, there is invariably a grip of emotions governing our inter-actions with the external world.

Do you ever truly possess anyone or anything? Yet this is the most common illusion that is shared by most people. They live their life believing that they possess their children, husband, wife, subordinates and so on. Then they try to control each one to their benefit and get disappointed because they are unable to achieve the desired outcome. They get so attached to wanting to control and the other person gets attached to wanting to be free and life’s drama unfolds. We experience stress and suffer anxiety. What is truly required is for a person to be in control of their emotions and not allow another to impact their emotional equilibrium. Then only one is able to play fully and whole-heartedly in this playground of Creation and enjoy every aspect of it.

“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it is real, so he escapes suffering.” Buddha