A Dense Hologram
This essay is the third installment in a series on illusions. This article focuses on whether external bodies are real. Some mystics have said that the things perceived through the physical senses are not real but are maya, which means illusion, projected from a single Source. What is reality then? This article discusses two possible answers: (1) external objects and bodies are solidified holographic projections of a single Mind; (2) the senses create a neural representation that is real to those with the same perceptual machinery.
Holographic Projections of God
A hologram is a visible three-dimensional image that is composed of light from a projector. The light can be blocked by something solid but the hologram is still present as long as the projector is turned on. Everything within the universe, including all planets, people, animals, comets, and galaxies, may consist of holograms of varying density, the energy of which has slowed down to solidify in a form that is perceptible to the senses.
A hologram is only possible if there is a projector. Some call the projector “God” or the invisible Cosmic Sun but it has many other names, such as the Oversoul or Paramatman. What is real to God may not be what is real to a human being because the former contains billions of perspectives while the latter consists of only one individual. What the Mind of God “sees” may be very different from what the eyes of normal human beings perceive. To better understand, imagine that external reality is like a video game. While it looks like the main character has a physical form and navigates visible obstacles and characters, in fact each entity and each image are actually mathematical equations. The game players’ inputs are translated into algorithms which specify the action of the main figure and its interactions with the other representations on the video screen. Probability equations predict how action affects the future. These equations are continually changing over the course of the game.
Based on the video game metaphor, several questions arise: who is in control – an omnipresent God or the individual? Maybe a group mind is in control? Maybe there is no God Projector as so much as a program that obeys the laws of probability and mathematics? Maybe God sees the near future? Perhaps, the Mind of God has Senses which work differently from those of the human brain? Maybe the God Projector perceives like a time-lapse camera? Maybe God sees only the soul of human beings and not the bodies? Or maybe God sees all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum? These questions are beyond the scope of this essay but are food for thought.
Neural Representations
Alternatively, reality may be only as real as the senses are able to perceive. The eyes capture light within the visible range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which allows the perception of bodies, plants, animals, and other solid materials. Other technologies have revealed different aspects of physical reality. For example, physicists use instruments to detect quarks invisible to the unaided eye. An MRI scanner reveals the inside of a human body, including its organs, bones, and blood vessels. Thus, there is something external to the human being (it’s not purely maya) but what the human senses of it depends on his or her available technology.
There is a hybrid answer to the discussion above: the un-reality of maya can be revealed to human beings who attain a higher consciousness through meditation, fasting, and concentration. What is seen while abstaining from food consumption, for example, is what a double exposure photograph reveals: transparent bodies or holographic images moving in accord with time. By redirecting part of an individual’s energy from digestion, one can perceive what is normally invisible to the eye.
Conclusion
It may be true that external reality is composed of holograms of varying density and that the machinery of perception determines what is real to the individual. The fact that the world may be a solidified hologram does not render the physical bodies unreal to the brain which means the word “maya” is not 100% correct. The mechanisms of perception create what is real to each person. Humans do not perceive quarks because the eyes cannot see something that small and fast. On the other hand, humans can invent and build instruments that make the subatomic world “real.” Once again, the brain’s limitations create an illusion but science and some spiritual practices provide a way to know the truth.