Unveiling Ignorance
Try imagining a scene of a person who lives a life where he is unaware that whatever he experiences through any of the sense doors, moment to moment, are all being mistakenly interpreted. But he is totally unaware of it. And since there is no one around pointing it out to him or there is no situation permitting him to realize such errors, he lives his life entirely convinced by what he is experiencing. He lives in a world entrapped in ignorance yet he is not aware of it. In other words, he is far removed from reality, but to him what he is going through is true, albeit a grievous error – a life lived entirely on fake experiences but taken as real. What if we are standing in that person's shoe?
You may say, unless and until you are truly shown what is taking place, you will live the way you are. And probably you may say there is nothing wrong with that too. One day, if the mistake is being shown and you wake up to that reality, will you choose the former over what is true? You definitely won't or rather you can't since you have woken up to what is true. And if that waking up gives you more peace than ever, less stress and more clarity, a great contrast to what has been before, will you bargain for anything else?
What if the above imaginary situation, as a matter of fact, is occurring in our experience? What if what we have encountered so far through any of our sense doors is unquestionably an error and that almost every thought that we may have been thinking of is but a fabrication of our senses? It can't be proven at this moment as long as an inner inquiry is not in place, as long as it has not been shown or pointed out and ultimately, unless and until it has been directly experienced by oneself. Until then, the error found in our experiences will remain as real as before, if unquestioned.
An old adage has this to say – when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When suddenly due to whatever Grace, one day we come to realize that our experiences are questionable, only then will we take on the journey of seeking higher truth or higher realities. And usually, it begins with an instinctive feeling that there is more to life and that probably our sense experiences are not just what they appear to be. Even the question of `Who am I?’ may suddenly pop up.
The knock may have occurred on your door. You may be ready for the exploration. Are you heeding it? Are you asking how to start or where to begin? The answer is found within your own mind. Understanding your mind will lead you to understand the errors that have been occurring all these while under your nose. From these realizations and corrections, what is real and has been hidden will finally be understood. WISE offers you the Path that enables you to explore at your own time, discovering who you really are.
In grace,
Tuck Loon
on behalf of The WISE Team
Newsletter 17 March 2021