Weve Been Living in a Dream World
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Weve Been Living in a Dream World by Jean-Claude Koven
“Most people are other people,” Oscar Wilde once remarked.”Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives amimicry, their passions a quotation.” As he so wryly observed,the vast majority of us are not who weve been pretending to be,and the lives weve been living until now are molded accordingto rules and values that are not our own. Most of humanity isstuck in someone elses discarded chewing gum and has yet tobreak free.
Unless you have been brave enough to forsake this trap, here isyour likely portrait: your religious convictions are those ofyour parents or community; you root for your hometown sportsteams; your political allegiances conform to the party systemthat society offers; you are an avid observer of the culturalpageantry, like the Super Bowl and the Oscars; your holidays arethe standard ones, such as Christmas, New Years Eve, andIndependence Day; you look to your political and religiousleaders for guidance and protection; you feel driven tosucceed–to make more money, to live a better life.
These are worthy and desirable choices that hold families andsocieties together. They make you who you are, you might argue.True, but only if you are content with admiring the wrapping andnever looking inside the box. If you dared to look, youddiscover how these basic thoughts originate in a fundamentalbelief formed during the first years of your life: that survivaldepends on obeying the rules. Children typically bend theirperceptions and interpretations of reality to match those oftheir parents and others who care for them. They find cleverways to please in order to receive attention and belong. As theygrow up, the people and issues may change over time, but theinitial patterns of conformity remain deeply ingrained in thesubconscious.
The price for surrendering to consensus is steep. It is nothingless than the loss of individuality and curiosity. Without thesetwo magnificent attributes, you disengage from the grandness ofthe creation and implode into the holographic illusion humanshave come to call reality. You become one of Oscar Wildes otherpeople, thinking someone elses opinions and assuming they areyour own.
We are trapped in the daily drama the culture and the media feedus: mortgages, sporting events, tsunamis, sex offenders, AIDS,terrorism, global warming, corrupt governments, and economicinequities . . . all demanding our attention. The matrix playsus like an instrument. A thirty-second news bite can push ourbuttons. We get hooked and riled, liberally lacing ourcollective guts with corrosive biochemicals unleashed by ourrighteous indignation.
This condition is virtually universal. It is also the underlyingcause of the world as we know it. People cling so tightly totheir personal and social identities that they are blinded toanything that does not validate them. The inevitable product isa world of war, greed, and competition, driven by paranoia andfear.
The way out is easier than anyone might imagine. However, veryfew summon the courage, for it requires them to leave thecomfort of their known world and walk alone, unaided by thecrutch of belief and dogma, into the domain of pureconsciousness. Most people would rather get caught up in thebusiness of earning a living, raising a family, or helping theircommunity than deal with the unsettling immensity of All ThatIs.
Yet it seems that all humans are meant to
take this epic journeyof discovery at some point in their series of lives on thisplanet. If you choose to walk this path, you will find yourselfgaining a new perspective–that of consciousness, where themind, with its judgments and emotions, ceases to dominate andthe heart is your only reliable guide. The great issues of yourdaily life that once commanded your attention now seemwondrously arbitrary and irrelevant–simply interestingexperiences that lasted far too long and became unnecessarilyweighty.
You now see the illusion for what it is: a game-board projectiondesigned so aspects of the Oneness can experience duality, fear,and separation. It is no more real than a programmed matrix in acomputer game. You and I are merely units of awareness projectedinto the matrix, defining ourselves by the points through whichwe view and believing what we see to be reality. Who did theprojecting? You. Who is the projection? You. There is only you.
How do you get to this liberating place from which you can seethe larger picture?
The cosmic formula of creation is gloriously simple: Attention +Intention = Manifestation. Nothing in the universe evades thislaw. The reality you perceive is entirely a function of the onlytwo forces at your command: your attention and your intention.Bring conscious awareness to this equation–consciously monitoryour attention and intention and what you are manifesting–andeverything changes.
Through this ongoing process of self-observation it will becomeincreasingly clear that the part of you that is projected intothe illusion is in trouble. This realization in fact marks thebeginning of your journey out of the illusion. Once you begin tocouple the law of Attention + Intention = Manifestation with theconcept of Oneness, you begin to see a completely differentpicture. You are All That Is. There is nowhere for you to go,nothing to attain, no lessons to learn.
If you buy into the reality that you are an earthbound humanstuck in the struggle of life, presto, there you are. If youfocus on the part of you that is watching you flounder in theillusion, snap, youre free. It cant get much easier than that.Yet why are so few of us awake?
The written or spoken word can do no more than point the way.And trading one belief system for another accomplishes nothing.The answer lies elsewhere. Waking up is a consequence ofinduction. Just a few years ago you might have placed yourselfin the presence of a guru or master and, through devotion,discipline, or some other practice, gradually assumed some ofhis or her enlightenment. Now, using the law of A + I = M, youbecome your own master. By focusing your attention on the partof you that is watching the rest of you floundering in theillusion, you are taking a giant step in restoring control overhow your attention is commanded. If you add the intention ofreclaiming your essence, you complete the formula that can onlyresult in the manifestation of whatever your curiosity seeks toexplore.
The payoff of having been so deeply mired in the illusion thatyou nearly succumbed is compassion for those still stuck in thematrix, coupled with a large dose of humility. You have learnedthat the illusion is perfect exactly as it is. The only thingthat needs to change is the point from which we view it. Now allthats left is for you to summon the courage to begin thejourney home.
- 30 – __________________________________ Jean-Claude Koven is awriter and speaker based in Rancho Mirage, CA. He is the authorof Going Deeper: How to Make Sense of Your Life When Your LifeMakes No Sense, the Allbooks Reviews editors choice for thebest metaphysical book of 2004. Recipient of USABookNews.combest metaphysical book award. For more information, please visitwww.goingdeeper.org. __________________________________
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