What Do They Mean, "Life Is Just an Illusion?"

Most of us go through our entire lives believing that everything we see in front of us is solid, is real. We never question the nature of the universe or the validity of our senses. Do we even know that there is more to life than what we perceive with the five senses? Most of us would have to answer this question with a “no”. Do we really know what we are looking at each day? What we are touching, feeling, smelling, hearing?

We are all accustomed to and used to the idea that the universe is solid and real. We touch, smell, taste, see and hear things constantly, for this is how we perceive our universe isn’t it? According to our five senses, everything we come into contact with is just as real as we are. To most people, if you can’t experience it with these five senses it does not exist.

This is where it gets interesting, and where we either get confused or lose interest. What we perceive with these five senses, in reality, is only but a small portion of all that exists. Additionally, what we touch, smell, taste, see and hear, i.e. what we sense, is not actually real; as nothing sensed is real. All motion is a simulation, it is an illusion. All we perceive with our senses is motion, motion of light. Motion is not real, although it simulates that which is real.

If this is the case, then what is real? The answer is quite simple, stillness. Stillness of what you might ask? It is none other than Light. Walter Russell, in his timeless classic, The Secret of Light, explains, “Light cannot be seen; it can only be known. Light is still. The sense of sight cannot respond to stillness. That which the eyes ‘feel’ and believe to be light is but wave motion simulating the idea if Light.

When man sees the light of the sun he believes that he is actually seeing the light when the nerves of his eyes are but ‘feeling’ the intense, rapid, shortwave vibrations of the kind of wave motion which he senses as incandescence. Man likewise cannot see darkness. The nerves of his eyes which sense motion slow down to a rate of vibration which he can no longer ‘feel’.”

In layman’s terms, what we see as light is not actually real light; it is but simulated light as an extension of the real Light. It is the same with matter, as matter is but simulated light, it is not the Light itself. The physical universe, where we are currently, is composed of simulated light only, in the form of motion. Motion can only sense motion, it cannot sense stillness. In other words, our five senses can only perceive motion (illusion), and not stillness (reality). This is why Jesus, as recorded in the Bible, said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Why did he say this? Quite simply, because it is impossible to judge accurately with the senses, as the senses do not perceive that which is accurate, i.e. that which is real, in the first place.

Walter Russell adds further in his book thus mentioned, “Perhaps the confusion which attends this idea would be lessened if we classify everything concerning the spiritual universe, such as life, intelligence, truth, power, knowledge and balance as being the ONE LIGHT of KNOWING, and everything concerning matter and motion as being the TWO SIMULATED LIGHTS of thinking.” Put simply, we cannot know anything real through thinking, as thinking only perceives motion, which is illusion. It is like a mirage. The mirage reflects the idea of that something, although it is not that something.

As summarised by Russell, “The light which we think we see is but motion. We do not see light. We FEEL the wave vibrations set up by the motion which simulates light, but the motion of electric waves which simulate light is not that which it simulates.” This is what it means that life is just an illusion. It is not life itself that is an illusion, but what we think we perceive life to be. The world that we think we see is not the world that really is. Our life is nothing but an accumulation of ‘senses’ experiences which we have interpreted and given meaning. Without judgement, life just is.

What we perceive as being ‘bad’, ‘negative’, ‘devastating’, ‘hard’, etc., are according to our senses, our thinking. Without thinking, none of these things would exist. Most of us live our entire lives caught up in our senses, being stuck in thinking; as this is where we think reality exists. The truth is the exact opposite. Our thinking is limited to illusion, as thinking can only perceive motion. Motion is the simulation of stillness, as stillness is all there is, although our senses tell us otherwise.

So then, with this knowledge, how do we live in reality? We live in reality by living in stillness, which exists only in the now. The past and the future are based on motion. Neither the past nor the future exists, except in our thinking. Stillness is who we really are. As we step out of our thinking and silence our minds, what do we find? Nothing but stillness. We are that stillness. That is who we really are. We are the consciousness, the very awareness that underlies all thought and sensing.

We have the opportunity to live in the moment of now, or to live in the past or future. One is reality, the other illusion. The one entails that everything is perfect, the other that it needs to be changed. The one exists in perfect love and acceptance, the other in fear and separation. Many people never get this because it is too simple. They spend their entire lives searching for some wonderful, amazing, world shattering truth or teaching, never realising what they are searching for is constantly in front of them. It is our choice to which course we pursue in life. When we choose to live in the now, in stillness, we live in reality. When we choose to live in the past or future, in our thinking, which is motion, we live in illusion.