Page 678 - Atlas of Creation Volume 4

Peter Russell makes the following statements:

At first, we might find it surprising that the conclusions of modern physics are so far removed from our ex-
perience or reality. . . . What would be far more surprising would be to find that the image of reality created
in the human mind was indeed a faithful representation of the thing-in-itself.

When we speak of the material world we usually think we are referring to the underlying reality—the world
that we are perceiving “out there”. In fact we are only describing our image of reality. The materiality we ex-
perience, the solidness we feel, the whole of the “real world” that we know are all aspects of the image crea-
ted in the mind; they are part of our interpretation of reality. Paradoxical as it may sound, matter is somet-

hing created in the mind. 72

That being so, reality for us is not matter, the external original of which we can never directly expe-
rience. Since all these things consist of an image formed by electrical signals in the brain, reality cannot
be the world inside the brain, either. This world is completely illusory, a phantasm. We are misled by
observing that world. “Reality,” therefore, is neither outside nor in the image inside the brain.
Is it difficult to come to terms with this state of affairs? Fred Alan Wolf summarizes the familiarity

with the illusory world in which people live and how they seek to avoid the concept of “true realism”:

Yet, we unconsciously strive to keep this secret buried inside ourselves. . . In other words, we unconsciously
choose to live under the illusion that everything is as we see it. This is not only a fundamental truth for you
and me, it is the deep secret of the universe’s existence . . . and it only works because we agree to believe the

trick. If we can stop believing it for one minute, one second, even one millisecond, and allow our conscious-
ness to become aware that we have stopped, we will see the trick revealed.

At some point in our lives, somehow, somewhere, just for an instant, the unveiling of the great mystery co-

mes to pass . . . But, we don’t shout, Wow! No gasps of wonderment fill the theater. Something becomes dis-
tinguishable from nothing in a single creative act, but we trick ourselves into not seeing. And so it goes. No
applause fills the air. We sit back, watch the show, breathe a sigh of relief, and say unconsciously, “We’ll ne-

ver figure this one out, might as well just accept it.”

. . . And most of us habitually remain unconscious and cling to the illusion until the last nanosecond of our
existence. We watch the boundary between ocean and land, between air, earth, and water. We watch the ef-

fervescent crust of sand, water, and air and remember the distinctions. And likewise, we live our lives in the
comfortable notion that an invisible membrane separates us from that world “out there”; that “in here,” in our
minds, our inner worlds of imagination, we are safe and alone. In no way can any person or thing intrude in-
to our individual mind worlds. Every sense in our bodies continually tells us that this is true, that we are each

alone. We ignore any information, any thought, any perception, any imaginative tale, anyone else’s story that
confronts our sensory presentation of the separated “out there” and “in here” worlds. We look skeptically at
people who tell us a different story, probably dismissing them as misguided fools, or even lunatics. 73

It’s by no means easy for any materialist to grasp and accept the fact that the world forming in the
brain is not real. This has been verified by modern science, but nonetheless, as expressed by Fred Alan
Wolf, this great truth is ignored. The fact we live in an illusory world is reflected as an ordinary scienti-

fic discovery and as an insoluble problem. The only reason for this is that what is “true” for us is “unac-
ceptable” to the materialist mindset. This “truth,” which materialists cannot admit and which scientists
are searching for, belongs to the human soul.

It is the human soul that is absolute in this world and that will live forever in the Hereafter. It is Allah
Who bestows this soul on man. The matter outside man, people’s own bodies and the worlds arising in
their minds will all one day come to an end and vanish. It is the soul, imparted by Almighty Allah, that
is absolute and perpetual.

Your Lord said to the angels, “I am going to create a human being out of clay. When I have formed him and
breathed My Spirit into him, fall down in prostration to him!” (Qur’an, 38:71-72)

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