Spiritual Guides / Angels - are those made up?

[ButterflyWoman]

@butterfly so do you mean if everything is "made up" and illusory, including myself"

Yes.

I right now, am creating you?

It's not as clear as that, but yes. The thing you interact with, which you think of as "ButterflyWoman" is your own creation. Your interpretation, your judgement, coloured by your experiences and beliefs. And I'm in your reality because your reality allows me to be in it. (You can also get people/things OUT of your reality by disallowing them; I'm much better at that than I am at allowing.)

Not thinking thats crazy to say or anything it's very interesting...

It's pretty standard non-duality, really. I didn't adopt it or choose it. I came to see and experience it after many years of transformation. I only later found out that it's a pretty well-documented worldview, and is shared by most spiritual teachers and masters (not that I'm claiming to be that, by the way). People have different ways of expressing it, of course, with different cultural and personal and other biases and filters. But it comes down to the same thing: everything is an expression of One consciousness, and that which we think of as reality isn't what we think it is.

[AstralCody]

I think I get what you mean...

I just find it so hard to believe it's just me making all of this up. I believe "butterflywomen" Is a being here in the physical, just like me... but I am not "creating her existance" you know? Bahhh I am probably making no sense. It's late and I got to get some sleep!

[SiriusTraveler]

Perhaps its not just you creating her, perhaps its all of us creating everything. Or perhaps it is already created and we just mold it into what we believe is real.

[ButterflyWoman]

I just find it so hard to believe it's just me making all of this up.

Well, it's not something people normally just change their minds about. I mean, it took a long time before I came to this conclusion, and I had a LOT of transformation and peak experiences and existential crises and on and on. I guess some people just totally awaken to it one day, out of the blue (Eckhardt Tolle apparently did, for example), but usually it doesn't work that way, because, as you say, what you believe gets in the way.

I believe "butterflywomen" Is a being here in the physical

That's funny, because I don't. Which just goes to show that this "butterflywoman" in your reality isn't the same as the one in mine.

I am not "creating her existance" you know?

The being you believe exists does not. Therefore, you're creating her in your reality, and I'm creating her in mine, but as you can't possibly know or re-create the person I experience being, because each point of view is absolutely unique, the one in your reality isn't the same as the one in mine. But what or who is looking through these points of view? One and the same Consciousness.

Think of it this way. I'm all alone, and bored. I wish that I could be two puppies, so that I could play together.

That's pretty much it, right there.

[AstralCody]

Butterfly thanks for the reply.

I feel like this right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UskJNZ9INKM
As far as confusion goes. lol.

I got alot of learning to do I guess... Like my sig says. I need to just keep learning and growing and seek more answers as I learn in this world.

[SiriusTraveler]

Thats what were here for (imo), to learn

[AstralCody]

sirius- Couldn't agree more

[Sinera]

From a merely linguistic point of view, it is interesting for me to notice that there is at first glance an inner contradiction here, often in the same sentence. It boils down to the equation: "reality = illusion" - but both terms are actually antonyms (real ≠ illusory). You see what I mean? Makes one dizzy somehow.

For me, as both 'concepts' or 'world views' are mutually exclusive somehow it is a matter of choosing either/or, but maybe only to describe the "same" thing after all. Choosing between these, I am rather an "all-real"-ist instead of an "all-illusion"-ist. So: Everything for me is reality / realities. The "soul" / Higher Self which might be a part of the "One" being, which in turn might be the 'ultimate reality' then, but that does not make its 'offspring' or 'split' or 'creation' less real. So why call it not 'real' then? For me it is. Same applies to all 'created' realities that we want and can experience, that's why it is called "real-"ity, after all. Every 'experience' is 'real' too, for me.

So what for others is 'an illusion' is for me 'all real' as there is no other thing as reality in the first place. The irony is that we might mean the same thing. Since there is no other thing as reality (apart from non-existence) how can it be illusion? It's real. This world is real, this "me" is real - even as a temporary creation or experience, then it is a 'real(ly) temporary' experience. The Source it emanates from is 'real' like every other thing it creates. I am a 'real' part of it that 'really' (co-)creates in a way, or not, who knows. I even keep up this view if I (my body and all material thing) turns out to be 'holographic' or 'digital' in nature. Doesn't matter. It's real anyway.

And of course (back on thread topic), imo, this is true of 'guides', too. I see this from a more utilitaristic and phenomenological pov. Is a guide a 'creation' (which is real) of mine? Is it another 'soul' (=real) who does this job (a real job) of helping (a real) me? Is it my (higher / future?) self (real,too)?
Be there underlying cause as it may, from a phenomenological view, they are always guides anyway. And real guides if their help is valuable to me. Their 'source', even if I cannot determine it with 100% accuracy (or not at all) is secondary. Judging a tree by its fruit, they are helpers/guides anyway, be they of whatever ('real') origin.

What is somehow to be called illusory for me is many concepts and ideas that people have of the world (of reality ), especially the (still) prevalent 'scientific' world-view (e.g. matter as the basic element instead of consciousness, etc.). But as concepts or belief systems of sth they are again - in their own way - as real as anything else, too, at least if we consider the difference between Saussure's signified and signifier. I admit, I also have a problem with the common view of hallucinations or 'delusions' as they are (for me!) real in some way, too. Every CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE for me is REAL.

Makes sense? Well, maybe not at all. I admit, maybe my view is even more weird than anything posted above.

[SiriusTraveler]

I agree with you volgerle about that what we experience is real. If I saw an illusion right now, then that illusion was real to me. So I might as well call that illusion a part of the reality Im experiencing, hence real
Either way, I wrote earlier about that something can be an illusion, and by that I mean that one can classify the entity/thing discussed earlier as an iilusion in the sence that it was made/created by one self, without taking away the reality of the experience. So for me, even if I would have known that I made the entity up, the experience would have been real and the entity would be an illusion... or reality depending on personal choise! Haha..

... my head is dizzy.

[ButterflyWoman]

The experience is real. Of course it is. Every experience is real.

But this "reality" thing that we think is objective, and "out there", and solid and so on.... it's not what people generally think it is. When I say "illusion" I don't mean "fake and without substance". I mean "not what it appears", just like a stage illusionist makes it appear that he sawed someone in half or set himself on fire, when he actually did no such thing. Smoke and mirrors.

And I want to stress that I didn't "choose" this. I only came to this when there was nothing else left to cling to, when all my other beliefs and perceptions about the nature of reality were sawn in two or set on fire.

I understand that it seems to be a paradox. There are plenty of Zen koans about precisely this sort of paradox, and at least a couple of parables, and some stories and poems in various sacred writings, and so on. But it actually isn't a paradox. It just depends on where your point of view happens to be; the apparent paradox isn't a paradox at all, it only seems that way from certain viewpoints.

And, yes, it's enough to really bake your noodle, but the most amusing part is that the further one travels, the less one knows. The rabbit hole is infinite.