Illusory me would still die, and all the spiritual excuses in the world wouldn’t change that. I wouldn’t step in front of a bus just because I think matter is ultimately illusory. That’s not to say we should disregard the idea of matter altogether – it is still the way consciousness is appearing so should still be taken seriously. The world is very much real as consciousness, but very much unreal as matter. This is the sense in which I see the world as illusory: It is made out of consciousness, not matter. If a magician performs an illusion, we don’t afterwards say “nothing happened”, we say “what we thought was happening was not what was actually happening.” As far as I see it, the world is much more nuanced than can be simplistically put down into absolute statements about its nature, and too much emphasis on these teachings can lead to someone rejecting or neglecting the phenomenal world as merely “illusory”.Īs I see it, the world is only illusory in one sense – that is, its nature is very different than how most humans usually think it is. However, like all teachings relating to the nature of reality, they have their limitations. These teachings are really fantastic for those interested in ultimate truth and enlightenment. The basic premise of this school of thought is that all is ultimately consciousness, there is no true separation, and thus the separate self is ultimately illusory too. The type of spirituality I have mostly followed since my spiritual journey began 8 years ago is called “nonduality”, from the Hindu word advaita, literally meaning “not-two”. Shakti, on the other hand, is often said to represent the manifest world, the life-giving energy of the universe, in all her beauty and horror. Shiva, the divine masculine, is often said to represent the absolute reality or consciousness that which is beyond all form. Instead, I want to give a very simple rundown of how I see these two ideas relate to spiritual awakening.
There is a lot written about these two principles, and I’m not here to write an intellectual rundown on these two ideas, not least of all because I’m not an expert in this field. In Hinduism these are called Shiva and Shakti respectively. In some spiritual circles, there is often a distinction made between what is called “The Divine Masculine” and “The Divine Feminine”.