We used to think we’re an important, even the most important, part of it—that whoever or whatever created the world created it for us. Why, then, does he allow his creatures to suffer?
Life is miserable for most of us most of the time. Nevertheless we struggle to go on living. Some of us go on as an object in motion remains in motion unless and until it meets an immovable object. Others do it because even the most miserable of us can remember at least one moment of peace, and even joy. That moment felt so right that we assume it must be what our creator intended life to be at every moment. Why, then, isn’t it?
Wise men said we suffer because we don’t live in the real world, but in its shadow. We left the real world, which is illuminated by god’s truth, as our ancestors left their hearth fire and ventured into the forest. Forgetting the way back, they became lost in the dark forest of illusion that we call civilisation. Why, then, didn’t our creator rescue us from that forest, as any loving parent would rescue a lost child?
Westerners said our ancestors disobeyed their creator. He therefore banished them from his garden. Ever since then we, their descendants, have wandered the world, trying to find our way back.
The creator tests each of us to see whether we, too, will disobey him. Those who pass his test are rewarded with an afterlife of everlasting bliss in his heaven. Those who fail are punished with everlasting torment.
Some Easterners also said we’re being punished, for sins we committed in a previous life. Buddhists said the miseries of life are as illusory as its joys, and we must free ourselves from both to find peace. All Easterners agreed that the only escape from this world of illusion is the peace we Westerners call death.
Despite their differences, Westerners and Easterners agreed this world of change is an illusion, a shadow of the real world, which is eternal. But if scientists can find no proof there’s any world other than this world of change, then nothing is real because nothing is eternal. It's real to us because we ourselves are what we call illusions.
Not only the world, but the universe, will one day end, scientists say—perhaps to be succeeded by another, just as it presumably followed another. Perhaps the multiverses of Western science are as illusory as the kalpas of Eastern religion. We don’t have, and may never have, sufficient evidence to prove either.
Neither can give us proof, so most of us have lost faith in religion, and are losing faith in science. But we still believe in gods.
Those who still believe in a heavenly god can no longer believe he’s merciful and loving. The world has taught them he can only be a god of wrath, who punishes those who dare to disobey him. But even those who no longer believe in heavenly gods still believe in earthly gods.
Those who have wisdom, riches and/or some other power often think they’re gods on earth, free to do as they choose. But only fools believe they’re powerful enough to master those who can't or won't master themselves.
Human society consists of masters and slaves. Politics is a game they play, the former pretending to command and the latter pretending to obey. Both know, if they know anything, that it’s only a game
Our powerlessness keeps most of us free from the delusion that we're gods on earth. But most of us want to believe some people are, or can be, gods on earth, who could right all its wrongs if they chose to do so.
Some of us do want to make the world better. But we can’t do it alone. And we’re always alone.
We’re told to obey our masters because they’re gods on earth—wiser, stronger and/or more powerful than we are. We all know that, far from being our superiors, our masters are more often than not our inferiors. But we obey them anyway—or pretend to—because we’re powerless.
We’ve lost all hope for justice, so we settle
for order. But we know, if we know anything, that it's an illusion.
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