by Guy Spiro
from the publisher ofThe Monthly Aspectarian

By now we all have at least some understanding that the world as we see it is Maya, illusion.

Even from a scientific point of view it is generally understood that what we experience as solid is really made up of molecules, whirling atoms, sub-atomic particles and the space between them. We know that everything on the physical plane is vibrating at its own peculiar rate of speed and has for the moment taken the shape of whatever we perceive. Deepak Chopra writes that the smallest particle the physicists have discovered seems to blink into existence when attention is put on it -- and blink out of existence when attention is withdrawn. If this is true then it would seem that the long talked about convergence between science and mysticism is upon us.

The question now becomes: What do we do with this knowledge? Because inevitably we run into the problem that the physical plane has this uncanny ability to simulate reality. The way I usually put it is, the physical plane is Maya but when you stub your toe, it hurts. At the density of vibration on which we have our physical experience, there are laws: every action has its equal and opposite, etc.

The density of the physical is so pervasive that it blocks out any easy apprehension of the higher realities and this becomes our problem. As we rise in consciousness and begin to attain a truer vision of the stuff of reality, what we've been taught to see as the real world remains defiant.

Lewis Carroll tried to help when he had the Queen tell Alice that she sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. Whoever wrote: Row, row, row your boat / gently down the stream. / Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, / life is but a dream, also tried to help. Aleister Crowley, in his effort to assist, is generally credited (the quote is surely much older) with "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law." These authors, along with so many others, have attempted to help us understand the illusory nature of our physical reality and our ability to change it . . . indeed to realize that our worlds are our own creations. By conscious commission and much larger unconscious omission is an individual's world built, thought by thought, emotion by emotion.

And so it falls upon us as awakening souls to rise in consciousness, to rein the mind and the emotions and become conscious creators. To say that it isn't always easy is a massive understatement. I wrestle with it constantly. But I can say to you that I have had some small success -- and it is the destiny of each and every one of us to attain mastery.

Maya is the dream from which we all will one day awaken.