Ancient philosophy that reality is just an illusion?

What if the essence of reality wasn't real?

What if you and I didn't exist at all?

Not that we were living in a simulation or computer but that we just did not exist.

This might sound stupid or preposterous to a lot of people who click on this piece initially, because after all - you sitting there, reading this, are a 'you' and I am a 'me' and you have your opinions and I have mine.

We all have preferences and we have identities that form what we are, so of course, it has to be real. How couldn't it?

This is where oddly enough we might go wrong, what if I told you that reality as we know it is actually just an 'idea' - it's just the labels we give to specific forms of life.

In Hinduism, this notion of reality not 'really' existing is called mythia, which roughly translates to 'reality as a dream'.
What if I told you that until we truly begin to wake up we will always be living our lives in this state of Maya; in this dream state.

Because if this is the case it would mean that reality as we know it is an illusion.

But why is reality an illusion, more importantly, what does true living mean? What is true reality itself?

To begin we have to understand the nature of what a reality would be as we see it now, and this is done through understanding something known as Maya, which doesn't have a direct English translation but roughly translates to 'illusory nature' or 'delusion' in a sense.

Think of it this way - you see reality through your own personal filter, your own thoughts your own sight what you hear, what you smell.

How your brain interprets this creates a personal filter of reality. Mine being the Joey reality and my cats being his Mason reality.

But we take that as what reality truly is not just for ourselves but for everybody as well, and we don't think about that until we get to a point where we're reading or thinking like this for practicing self-inquiry.

If someone else came up to you and said 'you have your reality, you see life as your reality, but do you think everybody else understands reality the way you do?'

Well we'd say 'they probably don't; they have their own perspective' but when we're in our own mind when we're in the state of mythia; when we're living our personal lives we think of reality for the whole of all people as something that would be understood the same way we understand it.

It's just how we subconsciously process what's happening because it's what helps us to get through each day. We simply don't have the brainpower to spend all our time reminding ourselves that other people not only have different perspectives but their own fundamental understanding and experiences of what their reality is.

This projection of ignorance of the subjective vantage of reality being mistaken and assumed to be the ultimate nature of what reality is; is what it means to live in Maya - to be stuck in Maya which all seven billion of us are.
That's what personal projection is.

This 'veil of reality' is just the mind, the ego, the thoughts structure veiled over us, having us think that what we see in this veil - our perspective, our vantage - is what reality is - but it's not real and it doesn't really exist.

There is true reality beyond this illusion called life especially human life, that is what Maya encompasses in the essence of life as an illusion.

Maya isn't inherently good or bad, in the same way that ego isn't good or bad inherently. It's just our sense of self, the identity that we think we are, and while this can be something that might hurt our brains if we think too deeply, it's pivotal to understand that life isn't really as we see it now - that the reality we view life through these eyes to these senses is not real.

Think about this, your brain is inside of your skull. It creates an entire 'guess' about reality purely based on the electrical signals sent to it by the organs. The mind literally is converting electrical data into a fully immersive, estimated guess on what is there in front of you.

This also aligns with the idea that all of reality is fundamentally energy, in the sense that when you get down to a sub-atomic level, there is no color, form, etc - there is only different frequencies of electrical vibration.
The essence of spirituality itself is about going beyond this veil of Maya - it's about transcending this ignorant state of mythia, of thinking that what we experience is what existence is.

Spiritual life is about integrating ourselves with the whole, however we might do so - Ramakrishna would always say every religion is a path to God and by a path to God he means a path to oneness.

A path to realizing the self as the eternal and not the illusion through which we view and assume life and reality to be.
A good way to perceive this is to imagine an ocean, in all reality there is the ocean but we with definitions with words with ideas in our mind, see a part of the ocean arise into a certain shape and we go 'that is a wave'.

We think of that wave as a real thing and when that shape turns back into the natural state of the ocean we think of the wave as crashing, as ending.

So our mind incorrectly perceived the wave as coming into existence and then going out, but in reality, the wave never was anything considered a wave - it was just the ocean.

The idea of a wave as an individual entity was just a projection of the mind, it was never really an individual entity it was just part of the whole - shapeshifting and taking a different form.

Much in the same way, human life is 'the reality' - it is totality - existence - Brahman - everything. Coming into the form that we define as 'human life'.

But just like the wave transforming back into the ocean we have to learn to see that this human life isn't a specific separate thing, but it's just ultimate reality coming into what we see as a specified form.

By getting this we start to see that we too are the waves.

That our lives and our reality is illusory because all that existence itself really is - is energy fueled by vibrations which form into what we call matter and move around in a way that we say 'that is a human' for about 90 years.

It's just vibrations, everything is just 'prana vibration' - energy at its core, coming into different formations that we give identification to.

But it's never at any singular point a thing.

If it was, we would consider a baby and an elderly person to be the same thing, but we don't.

You see we like to identify areas of the life as solidified, but in reality it is just a wave of consciousness inhabiting a body and then flowing back out.

Coming into formation through the sperm, into a uterus, into the shape of a child, into the adult, into the old age, into the dust - never being one specific thing never being stagnant - just being the flow of energy on this very slow vibration that takes about 80 to 90 years.

Birth to the essence of death we are ever evolving and changing the same way the wave does; and that is why life, as we know it, is completely fabricated. It's illusory and is not real in any sense of the word.

You might be asking 'what does this even matter?'

'What does this level of philosophical semantics have to do with me living life and recognizing my empowered true nature in essence?

'Why do I have to be aware of life as an illusion?'

Well this awareness, this conscious remembrance of life as an illusion is the only way for us to really transcend Maya - to work our way through the veil and merge into what ultimate reality is, beyond conception and beyond the mind.

A good example of this is when we lose our phone, while talking on the phone. That fear, worry, stress, panic, anxiety - doesn't exist. The emotional response is a direct response to how you were currently percieving reality.

Suffering.

Suffering never really had to exist at all, we just hype our self up so to speak by not putting our awareness on what is important, love, giving, gratefulness.

The thing that happens when we are always consciously aware, reminding ourselves that life is an illusion, is we stop seeing anything as a panic and always understand that we're always talking on the phone.

It allows us to just see the whole of reality - the pure truth as all-pervading, all around us, and as what we are even beyond the idea of thinking of it as a thing.

This just liberates us from any essence of fear or worry or anxiety or suffering whatsoever.

The Advaita Vedanta (a school of Hindu philosophy) path is so powerful because we are essentially divinity incarnate, all of reality is divinity itself and this understanding helps us see the interconnected nature of everything becoming oneness.

Meaning that we can start to use our thoughts, use our actions, use our emotions, use everything that we can do physically, mentally and emotionally - but do so in a way that does not think about only itself.

It starts to go beyond and we start to do everything with compassion. It's called cultivating the good.

When we think in this way and life is in the mind as an illusion we see that we are just the 'eternal act' and that means we start to be more compassionate we start to be more loving we start to do everything for the 'whole' serving the whole and loving the whole - versus doing everything to get the little bit of personal gain that gives us that high, that rush and that meaning on a temporal level.

Those meanings, those highs, those rushes always fade but when we start to see life as the illusion and come back to the true self, everything we do not only resonates deeper but gives us fulfillment for all of our existence. Because we know there is nothing that is not us and therefore there is nothing that is not divine - as long as our mind is in that right place, we awaken from the mithya we awaken from the dream we push our way through this veil of Maya and we are left in a space beyond the mind that is just radiating bliss, awe, connection and beauty.

If you have any questions or comments please make sure to upvote, and leave them down below I'd love to answer as best I can!