Helpful Creation Analogies
Quotations on The Dream Universe 
Quotations on The Cosmic Motion Picture Show 
|
The mystics and modern science tell us that the universe is not what it seems. In fact, reality is much different than what our human senses reveal and what our finite mind-processors tell us it is. To help in understanding this mysterious universe and our role in it, many useful analogies/metaphors have been developed. No analogies are perfect in expressing absolute verities, but they do help the mind to image abstract concepts.
Creation analogies often refer to the universe or creation as a dream or play or movie or hologram, something that is not real - an illusion. It is important to note that this does not mean that the universe or creation does not exist. It does, it is just not what it seems. A dream exists, a movie exists, they are just not reality. As Yogananda has said, “To the man of Self-realization, Spirit is perceived as reality and creation as the shadow of the Infinite. When the universe is called unreal - Brahman satyam jagat mithya: ‘Brahman is real. His manifestation is unreal’ - it does not mean that the universe is nonexistent … The shadow is not nothing … yet it is not the object.” Similarly, if we hold an object in front of a mirror, the image we see in the mirror is not real, yet it exists in some non-real way. “Many react negatively to the notion that all this world is an illusion, and is therefore unreal. But this becomes more understandable when we consider that “real” in this context means “permanent”, “eternal”; and that only God fits that definition.” ~ Swami Abhayananda As well, we only need to remind ourselves once again that, based on indisputable scientific fact, everything in this universe, including our bodies, is 99.99999999% empty space. But we see and feel everything as solid. Such is the nature of illusion, the mysterious power of maya. This topic was first addressed in the Introduction. This sub-section uses this material and builds upon it. This virtual world of the cosmos can be envisioned from several different perspectives, e.g.
Each of these creation analogies will be briefly viewed from two perspectives, (i) their original form in which souls occupying their human forms were conscious of their status of gods, and (ii) the current situation in which the vast majority of souls have forgotten their true nature as gods and instead have acquired an “I-am-the-body” ego-consciousness. How souls went from having primarily god-consciousness to having primarily ego-consciousness is briefly addressed in the Introduction and will be looked at again in the Our Adventures in Wonderland section. The Dream Universe The mystics say that Spirit dreams this world in a similar manner to the imaginary worlds that we create when we dream. The main difference is that Spirit’s dream is a conscious dream, like a daydream. All the while It is having this dream of the imaginary world and Its own presence within it, Spirit is fully aware of Its real self outside the dream. The multitude of soul entities created by Spirit (and which are essentially Spirit Itself, in disguise) then consciously dream their own individualized versions of a localized creation. “Saints are those who are half awake and half dreaming: on one side awake in God, and on the other side dreaming the dream of incarnation. But they quickly get out of this dream.” ~ P. Yogananda “It is as a dream … each of the dream characters is, in reality, the dreamer, and once awakened, returns to the awareness of its true source and Self.” ~ Swami Abhayananda “We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.” ~ The Upanishads “So remember, God is dreaming this world …God created us that we may dream as he does, enjoying this dream and all its contrasting experiences, as an entertainment, without being affected by it, absorbed in his eternal joy.” ~ P. Yogananda “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream” ~ Edgar Allen Poe “When He imagines or daydreams, He creates a dream stuff composed cosmos, which to us is the waking cosmos and of which we all are a part. Thus we all are His daydream.” ~ Chandra Bhan Gupta Over time, our fascination and over-identification with the dream universe cause us to lose awareness of our higher selves and we eventually find ourselves believing that the dream bodies are in fact our real selves. Without awareness of our higher selves, we no longer know who we really are and we find ourselves in a universe no longer knowing how we got here, where we are going or how to escape. The knowledge of our true immortal selves is lost. A dream is a false impression of reality and as such is an illusion, so the dream universe and our dream bodies are also an illusion. However, to a mind that has lost its higher awareness, the world and our bodies certainly appear to be very real. Humans, trapped in the dream universe, believe their bodies and the universe to be real and live their lives as such. Round after round of births and rebirths continues until mankind at last sees through the dream illusion and regains his original status as an immortal being that resides outside of the dream universe. At that point, the game is over and man returns to his blissful and immortal self beyond the dream creation. “Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream” ~ Shakespeare “My intention to wake you up is the link [between our respective dreams]. My heart wants you awake. I see you suffer in your dream and I know that you must wake up to end your woes.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj "The life of a sentient being is a long dream. Existence only appears to be real. When one finally awakens, or attains Buddhahood, existence is seen for what it is--a sequence of illusions. Until that time, people will remain obsessed by the body, mind, and external phenomena, not realizing that they are illusory. You will live in a dream, thinking that it is reality. . . . Because they are unaware that their life is unreal, they do not attempt to wake up." ~ Ch’an Master Sheng-yen If we only had the word of the mystics to go on, the idea that we live in a dream world would be dismissed by most people, as this world certainly appears to be quite real. However, today’s astonishing findings from the world of quantum mechanics are now suggesting the very same thing – that this universe that we have always taken as solid and real, is not solid and real, but has a dream-like structure of frozen light. Consider the following dialogue between a non-mystic and a mystic; Questioner - At present there is a Sino-Japanese war going on. If it is only in the imagination, can or will Sri Bhagavan imagine it not to be going on and so put an end to it? Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi - (laughing) The Bhagavan of the questioner (whom the questioner sees as an external being) is as much a thought of his as the Sino-Japanese War! Ramana Maharshi sees the same war as the questioner. The questioner sees the war as real and wants Ramana to use his mystic powers to stop it. If the questioner woke up from the dream, he would realize that the war was just a dream and would forget about it. Ramana Maharshi sees the war as part of the same dream as the questioner, but has awoken from the dream of the universe (by dreaming it consciously) and to him the war has no reality in his mind. In his response to the questioner, Ramana Maharshi tries to help the questioner gain understanding by humorously reminding the questioner that Ramana’s body is also only a dream. Ramana Maharshi knows his body is just part of the dream and that his real existence is outside of the dream of the universe, as the soul. For humans under the magic spell of maya and avidya, this is not an easy concept to grasp. Let’s consider the following similar dialogue; Questioner - In Europe people do not understand that a man can be helpful in solitude. They imagine that only men who work in the world can be useful. When will this confusion cease? Will the European mind continue wading in the morass or will it realise the Truth? Ramana Maharshi - Never mind about Europe or America. Where are they but in the mind? Realise your Self and then all is realised. If you see a number of men in a dream and then wake up and recall your dream, do you try to find out whether the persons of your dream-creation are also awake? Let’s consider a third dialogue; Questioner - But we see pain in the world. A man is hungry. It is a physical reality. It is very real to him. Are we to call it a dream and remain unmoved by his suffering? Ramana Maharshi - From the point of view of jnana or Reality, the suffering you speak of is certainly a dream, as is the world of which that suffering is an infinitesimal part. In a dream you have when you are asleep you yourself feel hunger and see others also suffering from hunger. You feed yourself and, moved by pity, feed the others who are hungry. So long as the dream lasted, all this suffering was quite as real as the suffering you see in the world is to you now. It was only when you woke up that you discovered it to be unreal. You might have eaten heartily before going to sleep, but you still dreamt that you had been working hard in the hot sun all day and were tired and hungry. Then you woke up and found that your stomach was full and that you had not stirred from your bed. But all this is not to say that while you are in the dream you can act as if the suffering you feel in it is not real. The hunger in the dream has to be appeased by dream food. The fellow beings you find hungry in the dream have to be provided with dream food. You can never mix the two states, the dream and the waking state. Similarly, till you attain the state of Realisation and thus wake out of this illusory, phenomenal world, you must do social service by relieving suffering whenever you see it. In addition to explaining the dream world, note the last line in which Ramana Maharshi advises that even within the dream, we must play our dream role in helping others. One more quotation from Ramana Maharshi on this topic; Our real nature is Liberation, but we imagine that we are bound and we make strenuous efforts to get free, although all the while we are free. This is understood only when we reach that state. Then we shall be surprised to find that we were frantically striving to attain something that we always were and are. An illustration will make this clear. A man goes to sleep in this hall. He dreams he has gone on a world-tour and is travelling over hill and dale, forest and plain, desert and sea, across various continents, and after many years of weary and strenuous travel, he returns to this country, reaches Tiruvannamalai, enters the Ashram and walks into the hall. Just at that moment he wakes up and finds that he has not moved at all but has been sleeping where he lay down. He has not returned after great efforts to this hall, but was here all the time. It is exactly like that. If it is asked why, being free, we imagine ourselves bound, I answer, ‘why, being in the hall, did you imagine you were on a world-tour, crossing hill and dale, desert and sea?’ It is all mind or maya. Additional quotations on The Dream Universe creation analogy are provided in the left hand column. All the World’s a Stage The mystics say that Spirit is staging a stupendous drama. Each soul is assigned a role in the play and dresses up in a costume. The soul-actors identify strongly with the roles they are given and enjoy playing their parts in this magnificent pageant of the ages. However, they still remember that they are actors and that their true selves exist outside of the play. If their play roles call for them to be killed, they act the part well, but when the curtain closes, they get up off the stage, laugh about it and get on with their real life outside the stage. Of course, since each soul is a unique, individualized extension of Spirit, then it is Spirit Itself that is actually playing all of the pretend actor roles. “All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players” ~ Shakespeare “The universe is a stage on which a world drama is being played” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj “Only the onlooker is real, call him Self or Atma. To the Self, the world is but a colourful show, which he enjoys as long as it lasts and forgets when it is over. Whatever happens on the stage makes him shudder in terror or roll with laughter, yet all the time he is aware that it is but a show. Without desire or fear, he enjoys it, as it happens … When I cease caring, it dissolves.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj Eventually we, as the soul-actors in “the pageant of the ages”, became so identified with our pretend actor roles that we eventually forgot we were acting and that our real existence was beyond the stage. Our actor roles and costumes became our identity. Now, when the play calls for misfortune to happen to the actor, the suffering becomes real and is no longer entertainment. “Whatever is done, is done on the stage. Joy and sorrow, life and death, they all are real to the man in bondage; to me, they are all in the show, as unreal as the show itself. I may perceive the world just like you, but you believe to be in it, while I see it as an iridescent drop in the vast expanse of consciousness.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj “Individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation; mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role” ~ P. Yogananda “Go on playing your role as a father, mother, a wife, a doctor, a lawyer, a beggar, or king ... but ... be at rest within, in the joyful awareness of your perfect Self, infinite and eternal - like an actor, who earnestly plays his role on stage, but who remains conscious throughout the drama that he is not the character whom he is playing.” ~ Swami Abhayananda “God has spun this eventful cosmic play on the stage of time to entertain us, but we take the shadows as serious realities.” ~ P. Yogananda The Cosmic Motion Picture Show This universe has been called a “cosmic motion picture show in the sky” by mystics of the modern era – a movie in which the watcher of the movie also appears as an actor within the motion picture show. Similar to today’s cinema movies in a theatre, light passes through a “film” containing the images of the imaginary world and the resulting light images are projected onto a screen. However, in this case, the projected light is spherical, spreading out in all directions, and the “screen” is all space. The projected light of this “cosmic motion picture show in the sky” forms the objects of the universes much like holographic displays, i.e. the light is shaped, or condensed, into the forms of the objects. The light’s rate of vibration and inherent invisible forces combine to give the light-objects the look and feel of solids and liquids, etc. While everything appears real, it is all light, immaterial and illusory. As the movie progresses over time, the cosmic scenes are projected farther into space. The film of the universe is constantly changing and captures the musings of the cosmic Creator. Each one of us is a separate projection into this universe of light and shadows, our bodies made of vibrations of light. In our original state, each of us is conscious of being both a body in this projected universal playground as well as a “witness” to the cosmic projection. In this way, we can participate in the universal drama while retaining awareness of our true selves beyond this cosmic projection. Movies were invented and commercialized in the early 1900’s. Mystics since that time have made reference to movies, primarily Paramahansa Yogananda, Ramana Maharshi and a few others. For these more recent mystics, movies became a favourite analogy to describe the universe. “It is a staggering spectacle. I can describe it only by a distant analogy. Imagine the universe as a gigantic movie, unfolding scene after scene in time and space - on an infinitely vast, intensely alive ethereal screen that remains entirely unaffected by the action of the drama - and you will have a dim picture of what I mean.” ~ Gopi Krishna “The whole physical universe is a true-to-sight, true-to-hearing, true-to-smell, true-to-taste, and true-to-touch “technicolored” cosmic-dream motion picture.” ~ P. Yogananda “The Real is ever-present, like the screen on which all the [movie] pictures move. While the pictures appear on it, it remains invisible. Stop the pictures, and the screen, which has all along been present, in fact the only object that has existed throughout, will become clear. All these universes, humans, objects, thoughts and events are merely pictures moving on the screen of Pure Consciousness, which alone is real. Shapes and phenomena pass away, but Consciousness remains ever.” ~Ramana Maharshi “To know the picture as the play of light on the screen, gives freedom from the idea that the picture is real” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj “The lifelike images of the motion picture illustrate many truths concerning creation. The Cosmic Director has written His own plays, and assembled the tremendous casts for the pageant of the centuries. From the dark booth of eternity, He pours His creative beam through the films of successive ages, and the pictures are thrown on the screen of space. Just as the motion-picture images appear to be real, but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal variety a delusive seeming. The planetary spheres, with their countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion picture, temporarily true to five sense perceptions as the scenes are cast on the screen of man's consciousness by the infinite creative beam. A cinema audience can look up and see that all screen images are appearing through the instrumentality of one imageless beam of light. The colorful universal drama is similarly issuing from the single white light of a Cosmic Source.” ~ P. Yogananda Over time, the cosmic motion picture that we had been watching, featuring ourselves as the main actors, gradually became more and more real. We eventually forgot that our real selves were watching the movie from the cinema seats. We became so identified with our actor roles that we now believed that the actors were our real selves. We were now fully immersed in the movie and the movie world became our world and our reality. "This is the cosmic motion picture mechanism." A voice spoke as though from within the light. "Shedding its beam on the white screen of your bed sheets, it is producing the picture of your body. Behold, your form is nothing but light!" I gazed at my arms and moved them back and forth, yet could not feel their weight. An ecstatic joy overwhelmed me. This cosmic stem of light, blossoming as my body, seemed a divine replica of the light beams streaming out of the projection booth in a cinema house and manifesting as pictures on the screen … my illusion of a solid body was completely dissipated, and my realization deepened that the essence of all objects is light.” ~ P. Yogananda “I remember one day I was in the movies; movies have one fascination, because I see the whole world as movies. I was in the booth and I saw the operator was reading a novel and I saw this automatic machine was going on and the beam was causing on the screen a terrible horror picture. And I said, “Lord, how is it. I have the whole show of the universe in front of me. You are this operator who is thinking of new plays and Your Nature is throwing this beam in the sky. And I see the hero and the villain are nothing but pictures. Nobody is killed.” Many were being killed and shot in this picture but I saw from the booth it was the light that had created the villain and the light had created the hero. And the Voice said, “….. there is no villain, no hero, they are both pictures of my beam ..… realize that all this world which you see, of terrible wars and troubles, is nothing but a picture show, cosmic motion picture show in the sky” ….. Until you find that out, this world is a terrible show. I said to God, as He was talking to me, “But Lord, look at the audience. They are howling and screeching downstairs at this horror show. I see it is nothing but pictures and light because I see the invisible beam. There are no murders in the beam, no heroes, no villains in the beam. But Lord, what about the audience – they don’t know it.” Then the Voice said, “Tell them all to look at my beam within and they will realize that this show is given to entertain them, not to get mixed up with it.” ~ P. Yogananda Additional quotations on The Cosmic Motion Picture Show creation analogy are provided in the left hand column. The Holographic Universe "This is the cosmic motion picture mechanism." A voice spoke as though from within the light. "Shedding its beam on the white screen of your bed sheets, it is producing the picture of your body. Behold, your form is nothing but light!" I gazed at my arms and moved them back and forth, yet could not feel their weight. An ecstatic joy overwhelmed me. This cosmic stem of light, blossoming as my body, seemed a divine replica of the light beams streaming out of the projection booth in a cinema house and manifesting as pictures on the screen … my illusion of a solid body was completely dissipated, and my realization deepened that the essence of all objects is light.” ~ P. Yogananda “This very room and the universe are floating like a motion picture on the screen of my consciousness. When you look back at the booth, you see only the beam of light that is projecting the pictures on the screen. That this creation is naught but a motion picture, created out of God's light, seems incredible; but it is true. I look at this room and I see nothing but pure Spirit, pure Light, pure Joy.” ~ P. Yogananda “The experience of returning from that unitive vision to the world of duality, to the phenomenal world of space and time, does seem like re-entering a mind projection, a hologram, or a dream scene” ~ Swami Abhayananda “There is now a transparency to things in this new life - as though one’s body and all the objects were but holographic images with no substantial reality” ~ Swami Abhayananda “We might be the holographic image of a two-dimensional structure” ~ Brian Greene (highly regarded physicist, author of Fabric of the Cosmos, b1963) “The three-dimensional world of ordinary experience - the universe filled with galaxies, stars, planets, houses, boulders, and people - is a hologram, an image of reality coded on a distant two-dimensional surface.” ~ Leonard Susskind (highly regarded physicist, Stanford University professor, b1940) The Holographic Universe was addressed in the section on The View of Modern Science. Therein, it was suggested that from a scientific viewpoint, this world could well be considered as a holographic projection in space. The words of recent mystics suggest the same. There is no need to repeat the words from that section here. However, since The Holographic Universe is indeed a useful creation analogy, a few complementary words will be added. Yogananda’s “cosmic motion picture show in the sky” in which 3-D frozen-light objects are projected onto the backdrop of space is essentially the definition of a holographic movie. Yogananda, and other contemporary mystics like Ramana Maharshi, could not use the actual phrase “holographic movie” since their comments were made in the 1930 - 1950 timeframe, prior to the advent of holograms. But what they described is exactly that, a holographic movie. Consequently, the The Cosmic Motion Picture Show creation analogy is essentially identical to The Holographic Universe creation analogy. The two will be kept as separate entries in this Useful Creation Analogies section solely to allow the quotations to match the titles, but in essence, the two analogies are identical. This is the main reason why The Holographic Universe creation analogy was not included in the Introduction. The Cosmic Motion Picture Show analogy essentially covered it. Virtual Reality Game This universe can be seen as a Virtual Reality (VR) game in which the player of the game is also part of the simulated virtual world. This cosmic VR game is much more advanced than today’s systems, in that (i) the simulated environment of the universe appears to extend endlessly in all directions, (ii) the player is fully immersed in the simulation, as mentioned, and (iii) the player wears a complete, fully encompassing “body-suit”, not just a headset. Each of the soul “virtual gamers” plays within the localized portion of the overall virtual world in which it finds itself, i.e. within the range that its five sensors can detect. “Our True Energetic Selves are “mini-Me’s” of our Source Entity, who created us as fully sentient beings, i.e. we are self-aware and able to change ourselves and our environment … We and countless other True Energetic Selves … create the physical forms that we project our sentience into to explore our playground [physical universe] … The human form is a ‘wetsuit’ we use.” ~ Dr. Ulla Sarmiento, PhD, from Is Life a Virtual Reality Game, Illusion or Dream?, 2014. “Perhaps it is time to reconsider the very nature of physical reality. Could it be that the universe and everything in it is not material stuff governed by rigid physical laws, but rather some kind of virtual reality? This would be consistent with what Heisenberg wrote: “But the atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” And might the sole basis of this virtual reality be consciousness? Is consciousness the only thing that actually exists … a vast unbounded consciousness (or non-physical mind) beyond space and time?” ~ Bernard Haisch, astrophysicist, from Is the Universe a Vast, Consciousness-created Virtual Reality Simulation?, 2014. As an example of a virtual world, imagine that you were a crew member of the starship Enterprise from the prescient 1960s television series, Star Trek. You programmed the holodeck’s computer to let you pretend to be Wyatt Earp and, for fun, re-enact scenes from his life, including the shootout at the O.K. Corral. The holodeck would realistically re-create the 1881 scene in Tombstone, Arizona out of holographic light waves formed into all the necessary objects and held in place with invisible electromagnetic forces. Everything would look and feel real, including all of the holographically generated “cowboys” that would be needed to re-create the shootout, i.e. Doc Holliday and the Clanton gang, etc. You, the starship crew member, would then enter the holodeck and you would look and feel just like Wyatt Earp. Part of you would remember that you were really a starship crew member, though. You would then have fun experiencing various events, including a re-creation of the shootout. Of course, no one would get killed – all of the cowboys would be made of frozen light and would be part of the immersive simulation, the virtual world. After a while, you would leave the simulated holodeck world and tell your fellow crew members what fun you had playing Wyatt Earp. In today’s world, it has become more and more difficult to play in the virtual reality game of the cosmos without getting caught up in it and believing our virtual self to be real while ultimately forgetting our real self outside of the game. The body-suits within the immersive virtual cosmic world gradually seemed more and more real. We eventually totally forgot that we were just playing and that our real selves existed outside of this virtual game world of the universe. We now believed that the body-suits we were wearing to play the game were our real selves and that the virtual cosmic world of the game was real; “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” ~ Morpheus, from the movie The Matrix, 1999. “Once upon a time, I, Chuang Tzu, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chuang. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.” ~ Chuang Tzu (The Butterfly Dream) Similarly, the Wyatt Earp role that you had assumed within the Star Trek holodeck became so realistic and so captivating that you more and more identified with this pretend role and less and less with your real self as a starship crew member. Eventually you became so immersed in the drama of the wild events in the simulated life of Wyatt Earp that you completely forgot your real self and actually thought that you were Wyatt Earp. The shootout at the O. K. Corral, which would normally have been just a fun game, was now deadly serious. You believed that the simulated cowboys in the re-creation had actually died in the gunfight. When you stayed in the holodeck much longer than you were expected to, your fellow crew members came to get you, but you refused to leave. You had no idea what they were talking about when they said you were a starship crew member. It should have been very clear to them that you were Wyatt Earp. Besides, they were dressed in funny uniforms - how could you believe anything they said. Summary To help explain the true nature of reality and the universe that we find ourselves in, the mystics over the ages have employed the use of various analogies. Some analogies, like The Dream Universe and All the World’s a Stage, have been around for a long time. Some analogies are relatively new, since they refer to technologies that have only recently been developed. These include The Cosmic Motion Picture Show, The Holographic Universe and The Virtual Reality Game. These analogies help explain a world that is quite different from what it appears to be to man’s limited five senses and the finite mind-processor of the ego-consciousness. It is useful to have several creation analogies, as each of us may more easily relate to one over another. We can choose to focus on one, a few or all of these metaphors/analogies. The previous material covered in this Enchanted Universe section may lead some to conclude that one or more of these analogies may be more than just an analogy; they may, in fact, reflect actual reality. Such a conclusion would not be incompatible with the experience of reality that the mystics have had of this enchanted universe. Once each of us re-acquires our lost god-consciousness, we will have the same clear vision and experience of reality as they do. “There is only imagination. It has absorbed you so completely that you just cannot grasp how far from reality you have wandered. No doubt imagination is richly creative. Universe upon universe are built on it. Yet they are all in space and time, past and future, which just don't exist.” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
|
