A bit confused about reality

[Persipnei]

I'm trying to grasp something and I have that feeling that it's hanging on the top of my nose. Maybe one of you can give me the words I need...

If all is illusion and nothing more than focus/attention/conciousness, then there is nothing but conciousness. But I also hear there is a field and that we are just subjectively experiencing that field. What is it now? Is there a field? Is reality the focus we have on that field? Or is that field an illusion itself?

I guess it also decides: are the people in your life "real" as in subjective perceptions of some entity in that field? Or is everyone, even you who is reading this message, an illusion?

Why these two (in my eyes) opposite explanations? I have a feeling everyone is making it way to complicated...

[Moksha]

You will get different answers depending on who you ask.

From an eastern perspective:

Quote

The Day of Brahma ends after a thousand yugas and the Night of Brahma ends after a thousand yugas. When the day of Brahma dawns, forms are brought forth from the Unmanifest; when the night of Brahma comes, these forms merge in the Formless again. This multitude of beings is created and destroyed again and again in the succeeding days and nights of Brahma. But beyond this formless state there is another, unmanifested reality, which is eternal and is not dissolved when the cosmos is destroyed.” (Bhagavad Gita 8:17-20)

I love the idea, but for me it is just an idea  In a broader sense, it coincides with the scientific view of an expanding/contracting universe.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Moksha

[Persipnei]

So... there are times when there is a field, and times when there is none, but even when there is one, it is still just an illusion?

I'm trying to unravel cause and effect, and more specifically, the first cause. I can clearly see how choices let me believe the reality I am in now, but what decides the first choices? What decides I was born in a poor family for example? I could have chosen to be rich, right? Is your "starting situation" in this life just karma from previous lives? I grasp that I invented my parents, but why did I choose ones with those traits? Karma? Is life just karma being played out? A lot of questions, but I mean the same with all of them I guess.

[Moksha]

From an Eastern perspective, the Uncaused Cause is eternal and unchanging. It is "unmanifested reality". It creates the manifested "world of name and form", which eventually dissolves back into itself, and the process continues forever.

Some would call every manifested thing an illusion, but I see it differently. I believe that matter and energy are real. Eastern scripture speaks of both God Transcendent (unmanifested) and God Imminent (manifested). The apparent paradox is that both Brahman and Atman are the same, much like the sun and the manifested rays of the sun are the same. Ultimate reality is nondualistic, i.e., infinity is both all and none; the sun is One.

[Inliytened1]

@Persipnei to grasp this you really have to break away from the materialist paradigm or the paradigm of physicalism - which suggests a physical and thus objective, reality.  Think of reality rather as a giant Mind.  Think of it as Infinity.  Infinity and Consciousness are synonymous.  You can think of it as a field, but it is not truly a field - truly it is absolutely nothing.  Completely formless.  This is because it is absolutely infinite.  That's what Consciousness actually is.  And thats what you are in your Absolute form - which is nothing.

That is the Absolute.  The relative, or finite, is when Infinity splinters itself into finite parts.  The substance of these parts are still nothing, but they appear as a particular type of finite form.  Each part has its own angle or POV of reality. Because it is a piece of reality.   It is whatever piece or POV of reality that it is.

And so there appears to be nothing but these finite pieces of reality.  This is how reality experiences itself.  Through these subjective, finite points of view it is able to explore itself.  Or you can think of it as Infinity imagines itself as a limited form so that it can see itself through that lens.  And reality is a collection of these lenses.  And simultaneously it is completely One and unsplintered.

[Adamq8]

@Inliytened1 agreed and  I have experienced also, it is in that moment really obvious, like the most obvious thing ever, like waking from a dream 

[Inliytened1]

3 minutes ago, Adamq8 said:

@Inliytened1 agreed and  I have experienced also, it is in that moment really obvious, like the most obvious thing ever, like waking from a dream 

Indeed   

 

[Persipnei]

So... I have been trying to type a decent reply for 30 minutes. I can't. I have 10.000 questions while at the same time I think they are answered. Guess I found what I was looking for. Thank you for the right triggers  I'm gonna sleep a night over it.

[Adamq8]

Glad to help and goodnight ?

[Moksha]

@Persipnei In the end, the only answers that matter will arise from inside of you

If you're interested, I highly recommend checking out the Bhagavad Gita, particularly the translation by Eknath Easwaran. From your questions, it seems like a guide that could help you find some of those answers within.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Moksha