Page 42 - Matter: The Other Name for Illusion

The purpose of the nose is to receive smell signals and transmit them to the brain. The smell
of soup, or a rose, is sensed in the brain. However, a person can sense the smell of the rose
or soup in his dream, even in the absence of any soup or roses. God forms such a convincing
collection of senses within the brain with the taste, smell, vision, sense of touch and sound
that it takes a lot of explanation to demonstrate to people that all of these feelings occur in
the brain and that they are actually not dealing with the originals of anything they see. This
is the magnificent knowledge of God.

you, does not come from the sea. All of these smells are sensed at one point, in
a related area of the brain. There is no concept of right or left, front or back,
outside of this sense center. Although each of the senses seem to occur with
different effects, and may appear to be coming from different directions, they

all in fact occur within the brain. The smells which occur in the smell center of
the brain are assumed to be the smells of outside materials. However, the
image of the rose is generated in the sight center and the smell of a rose is
generated in the smell center. If there is a genuine smell outside, you can never
reach the original of it.
George Berkeley, a philosopher who has realized the importance of this
truth, says "At the beginning, it was believed that colors, odors, etc., 'really exist,' but
subsequently such views were renounced, and it was seen that they only exist in
dependence on our sensations."

It may be instructive to consider dreams in order to understand that smell

40 MATTER: THE OTHER NAME FOR ILLUSION