Permanency and Illusions

Written by Mathew Naismith

I had some insightful replies to my last post I feel I needed to share with you today, it’s just a little sad that most of the times I don’t receive a reply back to my replies.

By perceiving through the perception of time, illusions exist because we perceive time itself to be an illusion and why not, we are certainly ignorant to all we are in time because all we are isn’t this ignorance we live our lives by. The point I would like to make in this post is we can only perceive the existence of illusion in time not timeliness, a state we deem as our natural state, illusions just can’t exit in our natural state of timeliness as I will try to explain further.     

Reply

Illusion doesn’t mean it isn't real. What it means is that it isn't permanent. 

My Reply

It really depends on the perspective.

If we look at it the way you perceive it, yes everything that isn't permanent, eternal and infinite, is an illusion, however if we look at illusions being real or not, there are no true illusions just illusions of illusions.

There is a problem with permanency, because time is perceived as an illusion as well because it's not permanent, that would mean timelessness is only real and permanent not time. If everything that is real is only of this timelessness, everything real is also permanent; this also includes this reality because everything has always existed within this timeless state which includes this reality and time itself.

For this reality not to be an illusion it can’t be of time but it is, so realties of time are an illusion even though they are real, this is questionable. This would mean parts of consciousness are an illusion which gives us once again duality which isn’t supposed to be real because it’s not permanent.

What we are doing by perceiving that everything that isn’t permanent is an illusion is separating consciousness into it’s dual forms giving us duality again. To me there is no such thing as true duality even though it seems that way in our ignorant states of consciousness of time.

The real illusion is thinking that time separates everything into duality; this is brought about by our ignorance. The only thing that can produce illusions is ignorance; you cannot produce or see illusions if one is truly aware and one can only be truly aware when they see everything of consciousness exists in some way, not if one is only of pure awareness or pure ignorance but being aware that everything of consciousness exists.

It’s funny to think time is giving us the perception of illusions but time is also supposed to be an illusion, on the other hand timelessness can’t be an illusion because everything has always existed in this timeless state, it’s always been permanent and in this state we can’t perceive illusions because everything is permanent. We really do need to stop thinking in time and start thinking in timelessness as well I believe. What I am saying is ignorance has always exited so is also permanent, so any state of ignorance can’t possibly be an illusion.

So in all yes your quite correct, anything that isn’t permanent is an illusion but nothing of consciousness is actually temporary, not really!!

The following is another reply I received from another person concerning the same post.

Reply

We are real and the world is real, but the bodily identification of self is an illusion.

There are no higher and lower selves, only a real self that is extremely subtle and therefore subject to mistaken identification.

My Reply

Indeed, it's how we identify with anything of time that defines an illusion. We look at the body as being created then it dies, it no longer exists so it’s not permanent therefor it's an illusion.

What we don't do is look at the human body as transforming from one energy source to another, no matter what the energy used to create the body and mind, this energy only changes, it never truly dies.

The way we look at times gives us an illusion that the body just dies, that's it but that isn't really the case at all, the energy of the body continues to go on in different forms. Looking at our whole existence through the perception of time is what gives us illusions, this doesn’t occur when we do the same while looking at our whole existence through the perception of timeliness, illusions just don’t exist within this state. 

I agree, there is no true higher self, only to an ignorant consciousness can there be a higher self however to identify with this real self, we need to at times refer to this as a higher self. In a sense it is a higher self because it’s more aware than our ignorant self.  

We just perceive in time and when we do this, we only see or perceive energy forms and sources that have a starting and ending point when such energy is infinite within it’s existence. We still only perceive in time which give us illusions.

So in all illusions do indeed exist and yes if we think this human state is all we are that is indeed an illusion but only while we are perceiving in time.  When we perceive through timelessness illusions just don’t exist, they can’t, this is due to being aware that everything of consciousness does indeed exist in some way.

Let’s look at it this way, an illusion is a source of energy otherwise we wouldn’t be aware of these illusions, energy itself is infinite which makes these illusions permanent therefore they are not true illusions. When we think only in time, these illusion become real illusions, they are not illusion of illusions because nothing in time is perceived as being of permanence. Timelessness however tells us that everything that exists is an energy source so nothing is truly an illusion, just because an energy source changes form doesn’t make this energy form an illusion.

Indeed we are not all we perceive in time, while we are only perceiving in time, this makes time an illusion, what I am saying in timelessness this isn’t the case because everything exists from an eternal/permanent energy source therefore nothing can be a true illusion in this timeless state.