The Most Important Questions to ask:

There’s one question that has always tormented us as a species, as the highest expression of intelligence – we regard ourselves as undoubtedly the most intelligent thing on this planet. We don’t even compare ourselves to other creatures when it comes to our ability to problem-solve. The question that has always remained the bane of our existence is: Do we really understand life? Do we know what life is?

If we know what life is, then why is it so confusing? As we grow in intelligence, life should become simpler and clarify itself. By the very definition of intelligence, intelligence should help us solve our problems. Not just the outer-worldly problems, but problems that we have witnessed, the questions we have asked, like: What is life? What is existence? Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? What is death? What is consciousness? What is aliveness? What is meditation? These are the most important questions; the questions that can liberate us, the questions that can push away the noise and the chaotic disturbance of the mind to let us experience life in its pristine beauty. It is not hard to observe that our intelligence, our so-called intelligence, has not helped us in this regard whatsoever.

Reality is an Illusion:

The mind was confused a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago, 10,000  years ago, and it still is now, so we’ll have to revisit our understanding of life. We’ll have to revisit certain fundamental concepts of life that we have accepted as reality. Reality is illusionary at multiple levels. It is only real at one level, which is the bottom-most layer, the fundamental layer. The ground on which we construct our house is reality; the house itself is imaginary. It is constructed based on certain momentary thought processes depending on the environment, depending on our situation of life, depending on our desires, our fears.

Only one percent of what we experience as reality should actually be regarded as reality; the other ninety-nine percent of reality is simply in that silent presence that is asking all these questions. We are the seat of reality; not what we think is real – the sky, clouds, buildings, cars, the cities. Everything that we see outside is a kind of projection of our emotions. Let’s take an example of a house. Let’s just walk around and look at the house, look at all the things that are there in the house. As real as they all appear to be: There is a real wall, there is a real ceiling, and there are real wall hangings, there is a real floor, there is a real kitchen, everything is real right? Real in relationship to what? Only to us. They are real only to us. As far as existence is concerned, they’re totally illusionary. As far as reality is concerned, they don’t even have any space.

Imagination:

Let me clarify: This might seem a little confusing. “Are you saying my house is not real?” Not exactly. What I’m saying is, everything that you see in your house is a byproduct of thinking, somebody’s imagination. Somebody has imagined the wall. Somebody has imagined the color of that wall. Somebody has imagined the texture of that wall, and somebody has imagined the utensils. Somebody has imagined your garage, somebody has imagined the ceiling – everything is imagined! So, when you are sitting in your house, you are surrounded not by reality, but by illusion – the illusion created by our own minds collectively as a human species, and individually based on your desires. You have picked those things. Where do you pick it from? From other people, from other minds, right? So literally, this is what we do: We shop for ideas, and we don’t usually go all the way to the fundamental reality of existence to shop for ideas. We try to get them from other people. We somehow think that other people are more intelligent than us. It’s just some deep insecurity that we have within us where we feel like we don’t understand life. As much as you understand or misunderstand life, other people misunderstand it in the same way.

Reality for us is simply a mental construct, so try and deconstruct this whole process. Start from your surroundings, start from the habits that you have cultivated, and try to see if you can categorize things between absolute reality, unchanging, immovable, unalterable, reality, and something that is as flimsy as a thought. You can change the color of your house in a single snap. If you want to, you can change your house at any moment, so it cannot be a fundamental reality. You can change your job, you can change the people you connect with, and you can change your relationships. When we are talking about reality, we have to understand that we’re talking about something that cannot be discarded by our own will.

What can be discarded by our will cannot be ours, cannot be a part of Existence, cannot be something real. We can only throw away things that we have picked up. We cannot throw away something that we are, right? We can pick up an idea, we can play with it, and we can throw it away. Why? Because we are not that idea. We are not our thoughts, so we can play with our thoughts. What we cannot discard is that sense of I – this is me. I’m not even talking about this is my body, this is my mind, this is my reality. Behind all the clutter of perception, there is a silent witness that is real. How do we know that it is real? Because you have always been you. You have not been your neighbor. Irrespective of how strong your desire is to become your neighbor, you have not become your neighbor, thankfully. That’s good, because once you become your neighbor, then you want to become his neighbor. Just a projection of our emotions.

Happiness is not “Out There”:

I think it’s kind of a problem with us human beings that we always think that happiness is somewhere “out there”; somebody else has found it. Well, if you think that an individual has found happiness, you’ll have to go deeper to see if they’ve actually found it or are they faking it, but we don’t spend enough time with people. We idolize movie stars, we idolize businessmen, we idolize people who are actually not interested in being happy, who are just interested in projecting that image of happiness. I’m not saying that a businessman or a movie star cannot be happy, but by and large, they are not happy. What I mean is, they’re trying to replace that hollow space in their spirit with something external: Recognition, name, fame, financial security, whatever it might be. If you are idolizing them, you’re missing something very fundamental. For all you know, you might have settled a lot more into your Being when compared to others. More often than not, that is the case, because you understand your life better than anybody else.

Question Reality:

Questioning all these things is a part of questioning reality. Every time we knock at the doors of reality, we are shattering bits and pieces of our minds. Behind that mind is the reality, and this wall has to be shattered. It has become strong: We have put all our memories onto it, but it’s not so strong that you can’t break through it. In fact, it’s not even a physical wall; it’s a mental wall. So why is it so difficult to break it? Because all our beautiful memories are plastered onto it. The very thought of breaking that wall disturbs us: I don’t want to. I don’t want to do this. This is my childhood. These are my parents. This is my community. It’s all there, but the real you is hidden behind. Now, how can you get to the real you if you’re not able to disturb certain mental projections that you have created for yourself? Yes, these are very strong. I do understand how difficult it is to break through these bondages, but if only we realized that once we’re able to figure out how to break through this wall and go behind it and meet the person, we can always come back and see the wall just the way it is, because it’s not a physical wall. That’s the whole challenge: We have to break it to discover ourselves. Once we discover ourselves we can also see the joy and beauty of admiring that wall.

Now, what is this wall? It’s what we call life, our life, human life.  Reality is behind this. Reality is beyond this. Reality is timeless. Reality is beyond all our gadgets. Reality is beyond science. Reality is beyond religion. Reality is you – your fundamental perception. You are the reality. To get to that is the whole challenge of spirituality, the whole challenge of meditation: How do we get to that Self. The day we are able to get to it, we will know what reality is. We will know what is it to be real, in the presence of something that doesn’t change, that doesn’t betray, that doesn’t criticize, that doesn’t trouble us. That is us. Life is an illusion, that is why we call it Maya. Maya is “illusion”. We have hypnotized ourselves into believing that all this is real. Human beings have hypnotized themselves, and they don’t even know it. They think This is it. There cannot be anything more to life.

But that fundamental question that has always tormented us, irrespective of our intelligence, irrespective of our superiority, is that question: Do I really understand life? If I understand it, then why am I in pain? Why am I in trouble? Why am I still searching? Why am I still seeking? If I’m still searching, if I’m still seeking, then maybe I need to be searching somewhere else. I am done searching on the outside because it isn’t there, on the outside. I have shifted from one place to another, I’ve changed my relationships, I’ve changed my jobs, I’ve changed my lifestyle, and still, at a certain fundamental level, I am still the same. Nothing has changed, so maybe I need to start searching in a different direction. Maybe I need to start searching within me. Maybe that is where reality is.