Real or Unreal?

Do you think the universe - the world of forms and separate beings - individuals - is real or is it an illusion?

 

It's real, as is the one causing it to happen.

 

Depends on the standpoint. From the standpoint of the absolute truth it is unreal. From the standpoint of the jiva it is real. In the scriptures it is said the world has vyavaharika satta - a relative reality, for the sake of behavior. Just as a lucis dreamer still lives in the dream world, although knowing he is a waker, a realized soul transacts with the world, knowing it is a temporary reality, his own identity is in a higher level of reality.

 

i think the body was designed for pleasure... its real but one can experience all as an illusion and so there is choice whether it is real or not real

 

Very real, the beings are real and the things are real, they cannot be unreal, but what we perceive and how we perceive things might be totally an illusion.

 

Nice words man,
Used to freak me out for a while. Becuause i would get scared thinking everything was fake.
But it doesn't really matter anyway.
We wake up and we go to sleep in it, and live it, illusion or not.

 

If it was made for pleasure, then it was also made for pain. You can't have one without the other.

Myself I think the world is real, as is the individual. I don't think it's an illusion from any standpoint, but our perceptions of it may often be inaccurate.
But I don't think many people live 'in the world' - I think they live in their own heads, in a web of linguistic ideas about the world. They are like beings surrounded by a membrane of thinking which separates them from direct perception.

 

Bill, i was talking mostly about the internal wiring in terms of experiencing ananda... bliss and by this i meant pleasure but yes, too, there is the other pleasure and pain

 

Interesting and could be made into a little mental experiment, what happens when we stop the constant conversations we have with ourselves? What happens when we stop this so called 'thinking' , will our perception of the world change?

 

It isn't at all easy to stop thinking - to end the 'internal dialogue' as Castaneda calls it. Any attempt to supress the thoughts generally serves only to stir them up.
In another sese though, what I meant is summarized in the saying 'Reality is that which continues to exist when we stop believing in it' - can't recall off hand who said that.
Also, the Zen Buddhists talk about a state of 'no-mind', where one sees directly into the nature of reality.

I think generally, our perception of the world is continually changing anyway. To attain true interior silence would thus change it yet again.

 

non-dualized reality manifested at Findhorn, Scotland in the early 70's

 

I've never been there - maybe I will check it out one day, but I did see a TV documentary about 2 years ago about Findhorn. Strangely enough, during the time the filmakers were there, an Indian Vaishnava Swami was also visiting, and seeking to establish there a temple of Lakshmi-Narayan.

In fact, I got the impression that this guy had gone there, seen the somwhat spaced out new-agey types that run the place, and decided he could kind of 'move in', if you get my meaning. Instill a bit of discipline.
In the end though, they had various meetings and decided that they couldn't go with the Swami on his proposed programme.
So Findhorn remains - really the new-age capital of Europe, if not the world.

 

The ephemeral nature of all things percievable by the senses and mind, is a proof of their lack of reality. That which is real is real at all times and places, just as sugar is sweet at all times and all places.

 

How about an atomic bomb exploding? That's all over pretty quickly, but the effects can last for years - as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think you'd have your work cut out to explain to all those Japs that it wasn't real because it didn't last forever.

Also, time may not be quite what it appears to us.

 

I don't find your argument very convincing but if you are willing to put some sugar on some shit and eat it, I will be convinced..."sugar is sweet at all times and all places"

 

Why can't be that your perception is at fault rather than what you are perceiving.

 

Don't confuse finite reality with unreality because of its duration.

 

Exactly.

 

which is why the vedas never talk about ice cream because it melts and it is therefore false

 

Not if you eat it before it gets chance to melt..