Illusion can fill you with Passion

The words sunrise and sunset are deeply embedded in our experience and commonly used in our vocabulary. Therefore, you are unlikely to be convinced of the notion that sunrise and sunset are illusions.

But truth is that sun neither rises nor sets, because rising and setting are optical illusions created by the rotation of the Earth.

If there is no actual rising and setting of the sun, is it possible that our concepts of birth and death are also illusions?

Seeing birth and death as illusions will help you live your life with passion and affection.

Let me make it clear what illusion means in this context. It is not what you think.

I am talking about the Indian philosophical concept of maya, which if properly understood, can make your life lovely, lively, and loving.

Maya is a Sanskrit word that means “magic” or “illusion.” It is a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, especially in the Advaita (nondualist) school and it connotes a “magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem.”

It is also a spiritual concept which means “that which is constantly changing and thus is spiritually unreal.” The concepts of sunrise, sunset, birth, and death fit into this definition.

If you look at life as maya, you will abandon arrogance and absolutism and take yourself less seriously; you will complain less and thank more; you will speak less and listen more; you will gain deeper awareness and a wider perspective. You will live with fewer attachments, accept change more easily, laugh loudly, love deeply, and enjoy life more on this spinning planet.

Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh beautifully explains this concept of maya in these words:

One day as I was about to step on a dry leaf, I saw the leaf in its ultimate dimension. I saw that it was not dead, but that it was merging with the moist soil to appear on the tree the following spring in another form. I smiled at the leaf and said, you are pretending. Everything is pretending to be born and pretending to die, including that leaf.

An inspiring story by Leo Buscaglia called The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A story of life for all ages, is a powerful illustration of the principle of maya playing out in our life.

A conversation between two leaves — Freddie and Daniel — explains everything we need to know about life and death. You can watch that video on YouTube.

So, Earth is our best teacher about death; but the problem is that we don’t look at her deeply or listen to her closely. In this information age, our minds are filled with misinformation. In his book Age of Missing Information, Bill McKibben writes:

In nature, earth surrounds you always. Dead trees, insects and the birds excavating their guts; dead leaves under your feet beginning to disintegrate with a year of rain and snow; dead bones in the woods where the coyotes hauled down a deer; dead shrubs where the beavers revised the level of the pond and flooded them out; the soil under your feet an enormous crypt holding the death of all the years since the Ice Age ended.

The Buddha said, “When conditions are sufficient, the body reveals itself, and we say the body exists. When conditions are not sufficient, the body cannot be perceived by us, and we say the body does not exist.”

The day of death is a day of our continuation in many other forms.

I go to Jesus when I grapple with life’s major dilemmas. His comforting words in this context are: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit.”

There are no better words to explain the mystery of death and the miracle of life.

(from Cosmic Kindergarten: Earthly Lessons for a Heavenly Life)