I don’t claim to have any answers, but I certainly have a lot of questions. I often don’t know where I am going or where I belong, but there is something that calls me there. Do you hear it? Is it love, to hurt, to feel? Are we born into sin or born as Gods? Were we made in error, or not made at all? We are born into something, there is no doubt about that, but what is it exactly?
Is the world a dream that we simply cannot wake from? Are we here to learn something from each other…from God? Are we here to learn to love? Maybe we are the only way that God can feel. Maybe we are lost…Just when I think I know it all, I find that I am overwhelmed to the point where I know nothing at all. It is easy to get caught up in science or faith, but really how great is our perspective with such a limited faculty of understanding?
Do you ever have that nanosecond in the morning when the dream you were having carries into your waking moments and it feels real? If it's a great dream you get that little thrill in your chest and you can feel the surge of energy followed by the crash of disappointment. If it's a nightmare you feel a weight descending upon you that thankfully is removed as soon as awareness of your state creeps in.
I was asked years ago if we were really in a dream and if life was real.
The question has since bothered me night and day because it is one I’ve asked myself. In an attempt to shelter myself from uncertainty, I am guessing that I simply disposed of the question in the back of my head. The catch with that sort of thing is that eventually the question will return, more nagging and burning than ever.
Movies like The Matrix touch upon the subject and music often takes us to a place where we feel dreamy, but still it is difficult to ponder such a thought without becoming very troubled. They say that meditation will teach you that life is a dream of sorts, but one cannot really understand that statement until we reach the mountain top for ourselves. Yes, we all want to get to that mountain top, but what do we do until we get there?
The Enigma
If my current dreams are any indication, were we to really be in a dream world, our imaginary world is most likely a gross misrepresentation of the real world we are missing. Laws that exist here probably do not exist in other worlds, at least not in their entirety.
So, an interesting question based on the dream world hypothesis would be, “is everyone else real?” If they are, then are we all dreaming? If they aren’t, then am I living a hallucination? For me, this is the hardest part about the dream world idea, because if the rest of life was not real, then my family, and friends would disappear when I woke. Now ask yourself this question: If we had positive evidence that life was a dream and no-one else was real, would you be willing to wake up knowing that you would sacrifice everything you had become and those you have/had loved? Would you even be given the choice? Maybe upon knowing we are dreaming we simply, wake up?
I know what you are thinking because I am thinking it too. If meditation and Buddhism/Zen teach us that to climb that mountain we must give up every bit of baggage we carry, then in a way we really do have to give up our current “realities” in order to reach the higher ground. So is that what is stopping us from waking up? Do we purposely stay asleep so that we can continue to live and love our life on Earth? If we have to give up our realities to reach that summit, are we wrong in wanting to just admire the view from below?
I suppose this is where the cycle of death and birth nudge us in the direction we must go, but it sounds like a very difficult journey. I try at times myself, on a journey to reach that peak, but I hesitate to do so without the understanding of love.
So I ask you, is there a place for love at the top?
Maybe sanity is just overrated…
