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Originally Posted by Voice  I don't care about animals, I care FOR animals. I care for the illusion, because it is me, and I am it. My caring for animals is me caring for a part of my larger self. If I want to create a joyful illusion, I 'do unto others as I would have it done unto me', because 'what goes around come around'.
If I want to create a hellish experience, I create a hellish experience for others (people, animals, etc). Yet that is something that one tends to stop doing as awareness grows.
You're right, "they" are not really "there". There is no there, and there is no they. There is only me, here, now. |
I think the viewpoint that "only I exist" is rather dangerous. Perhaps not in your hands, but what if it were raping small children that was the illusion I desired? If I could justify it to myself by saying that they don't really exist, that they're just part of the illusion that I have concocted, then I think I'd be much more likely to commit such crimes.
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Originally Posted by Voice Likewise, as people have forgotten life is an illusion, they have created lives that are terrible experiences. Life was never meant to be terrible, but joyful. |
I suppose I've "forgotten" that life is an illusion (if you can forget something that you didn't ever believe), but somehow my life has managed to be pretty joyful nonetheless.
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Originally Posted by Voice Not sure I understand your question. But I don't get 'in fights' with people I love - that is a contradiction I rarely demonstrate anymore. |
There's just yet another difference between you and I. I don't think I could love someone that I couldn't fight with from time to time.
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Originally Posted by Voice I thought I did. If you still feel I haven't, or if you haven't understood the answer, you'll need to clarify the question for me. |
I meant that you keep on talking about how everyone else needs to expand/open their minds to reach some kind of broader understanding, but if everyone's universe is simply an illusion, then each person HAS expanded his or her mind to their own version of broader understanding. The two ideas are conflicting. In order for there to be some sort of level of higher knowledge, then there needs to be some sort of metric with which to compare these states of being. If each person is living purely within their own consciousness, then there is no metric and these states of understanding are by nature incomparable.