The great illusion and my words

The great illusion and my words are the main concepts I am thinking about these days, as I have been constantly working to improve myself, as I wrote two days ago in my main newsletter. They are very related.

The illusion is a fashionable concept addressed by most spiritual practices and is also described as life being a simulation, as experienced by some of my friends, like Fabrice Grinda, who described it very well: life as a game.

A good friend of mine, Loïc Hecht, has written an upcoming book titled La Simulation, which I am currently reading.

Elon Musk and many other public figures mention it all the time, and it definitely seems that he treats his life and the world like a video game.

Nothing new, Plato brilliantly described it as “The Cave.”

In the allegory, Plato describes people who have spent their entire lives chained by their necks and ankles in front of an inner wall with a view of the empty outer wall of the cave. They observe the shadows projected onto the outer wall by objects carried behind the inner wall by people who are invisible to the chained “prisoners” and who walk along the inner wall with a fire behind them, creating the shadows on the inner wall in front of the prisoners. The “sign bearers” pronounce the names of the objects, the sounds of which are reflected near the shadows and are understood by the prisoners as if they were coming from the shadows themselves.

Only the shadows and sounds are the prisoners’ reality, which are not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent distorted and blurred copies of reality we can perceive through our senses, while the objects under the Sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason.

-” The allegory of the cave” Wikipedia

Krishnamurti says, “The illusion is removed not by a path or technique, but by realizing that the mind creates these distortions.”

We see ourselves, our thoughts, and the world through the lens of our thoughts, past experiences, and conditioning.

I wrote about this in 2022 and unarchived it so I could read it again: “We definitely live in a simulation.”

I have a three-year-old son named Falco, and he has become a teacher of presence to me. There is only the now that exists; he mostly wants to play all the time when he doesn’t eat, and he needs to eliminate his natural waste from eating or when he is a little sick, mostly from catching viruses at school, a necessary step to build his immune system. He is not only always present, but he also sees what is as it is, not through all the adult thoughts, and speaks the same way; he also expresses his needs without wondering how anyone will feel when he does.

Falco is also extremely focused when he plays, to the point that anyone who talks to him while he is playing is often simply ignored.

I often struggle with presence and focus; that’s one way Falco is a teacher.

As I write this, I could be checking if I have new messages on WhatsApp or getting notifications on social media (I turned them all off, and my phone is always on silent), I could be wondering what a reader will think about what I write and change my writing, thinking about something else, etc.

Spending time with Falco reminds me of simplicity, focus, and the importance of reducing distractions.

I am also constantly reminded by him at his “pre-conditioning” and “pre-illusion” stage (the illusion is being formed daily, though!) that I could still be more like him again.

Now, my words and how it is related.

What I say is based on my perception, my thoughts, my past, and my conditioning. It takes significant effort to see myself not as the Self but as the observer of the whole, outside myself.

“The illusion is removed not by a path or technique, but by realizing that the mind creates these distortions.” -Krishnamurti

Krishnamurti offers here a simple solution: always observing our thoughts, reactions, and motives without judgment, keep a silent mind to see reality directly, and end conflict by realizing the observer is the observed. The division ends, and any energy spent in any conflict is wasted.

I have been working on practicing this.

If someone says something I perceive as wrong or an attack, I “see myself outside of myself, see that there is no Self, and try to observe clearly what is going on.” Why is it triggering me? What is inside of me that seems to be suffering from what I heard or saw? What does this person really mean? Why does he or she say this that I perceived badly? Is it about him or her or about me?

Compassion for all of us, and the understanding that I cannot understand what is going on in the other, or that I cannot perceive all of what is going on in me, resolves the conflict.

Love for both is always the resolution and definitely not engaging in the conflict.

This changes everything in the way I speak. More meditation, constantly, and more silence are required. Not engaging in any conflict. Compassion for both of us. Freedom and lightness.

Observe my thoughts and any judgment as a cloud that passes in the sky; it is all an illusion.