THE DANGER OF ILLUSIONS

"Illusions" can be found everywhere in society, and are part of how humans perceive reality in general. Money, borders, countries, economic systems, religions, the media etc., and the list goes on are all illusions, in other words these things are false ideas, beliefs, and impressions, and have created, and continue to create a lot of damage and waste in the world. As we all know the concept of money was invented in the official sense and brought into regular use in a place called lydia, in asia minor, many years ago, and since then has become immensely important in the lives of many people, but what this enthusiasm for progress brought in its wake, was that powerful human emotion which we call "greed".
The concept of money as we know it today is an illusion, countries and economic systems are basically in debt to money that does not exist, the numbers in computers and books and so on, are just negative numbers, what exists in reality are raw materials, the only thing real about money is that its substance consists of cotton and linen, and coins consist of metal. A lot of humans spend so much time being greedy, and thinking about money, and their image, and what people think of them, and so forth, and they rarely bother to spend any time thinking about what is real or what is illusion, and how these things effect the world. There is only a limited amount of raw materials in the world, and when this starts to run out we are going to run into trouble in the world, metals, and oil are both limited, things like livestock, and fruit and vegetables can be produced indefinitely and are less of a problem. Some people have the bad habit of treating other people badly for the sake of money, and not realizing how much of an illusion it really is. A lot of business companies pollute the environment just to make money, greed and illusion create these problems and dangers to the environment, and the majority of people in the world do not spend much time thinking about these problems, instead they are to busy thinking about money and being self absorbed. And also what are all the people who drive cars going to do when the worlds oil supplies begin to diminish. Also when one thinks about all the political and religious wars that have occured in this world in the name of one illusion after another, it becomes a ridiculous thing and can be viewed as ignorant and depressing. As long as human beings do not think about the difference between what is real and what is illusion, then their focus will be diverted away from the things which could possibly become dangerous in the long run for people in general.
The problem with a lot of illusions is that people follow them in a rational manner, and think that because illusions are rational then that makes them real, people think things like, for example, that we need money to survive so then it means that the concept of money is a real thing, when it is not, it is raw materials which are real, and action, and the exploitation of them by the use of money which are real.
The fact that a person can change their nationality and get a new passport is evidence that the concept of nations is another illusion, just like so many others, and even the english language is a mixture of so many things that in the end it has no real intrinsic identity of any distinct kind of reality, it is merely an appearance for real things or concepts. The attitude that some people have that most people should drive cars, and that owning a car is a sign of progress is an illusion, and it is dangerous, as I mentioned earlier, what are people going to do when the oil starts to run out in the world, the more people who avoid owning and driving cars the better for the world in general, our planet only has a limited amount of metals also, there are also better uses for this metal than building and making cars with this metal supply. Most pedestrians will find that cars are always getting in their way anyway and that the less cars are around the better for pedestrians all round. And what about all the trees and forests that get exploited and used up just so that humans can have some huge well furnished house or whatever other uses we have for wood. So that when one talks about"progress" and "reality" it is important to define what is meant by progress, and what is not, some things progress, and others do not and are a hindrance to society and civilization in general, for example, one must constantly ask oneself what has advanced and developed to a better state that we know of ?, and what has not? When talking about and discussing activities, or situations, or advances in society in general one can categorize them as either progressive, indifferent, regressive, and worse than regressive. When describing progress one must be clear about what aids it and also what curbs its advance, progress does not consist only of advances and developments, but entails the raising of the quality of things aswell as an awareness of the environment as a whole. We as humans depend on the environment so it is important to think about it at all times, and not allow ourselves to be too selfish and narrow sighted, we must care about and appreciate what we have got on this planet and that also entails curbing the population increase, too many people equals not enough resources for them all. The natural resources in the world and the economic system will not be able to withstand the amount of people and their desire to earn money and consume natural resources, but yet people continue to procreate and uphold the view that work, money, jobs, and consumption of natural resources lead somewhere to a more advanced state of progress and so on, and it does not, in fact this attitude creates more problems down the line. There are no "ideals" that are truer, and more noble, and have more integrity attached to them than having an appreciation for all forms of life, aswell as looking after the environment, and also doing what you want, and doing the things that you enjoy the most in this world before you die, and one should do this irrespective of money, or economic systems, or religions, or whatever other illusions people choose to pursue without thought or care for reality and what it means. And when you die you will not find a life after death, or loved ones, or a god waiting for you, you will simply be dead!, so do what is real for you, and for the welfare of the environment, and for the people of the future who have to live with the mess or lack of it that we create for them. Certain thinkers and writers think it is admirable to glorify capitalism at the expense of other types of political systems, but the reality is that capitalists are consuming, exploiting, and destroying natural resources and the environment in pursuit of an illusion and for a temporary sense of accomplishment, the so-called glory of capitalism is an illusion and a destructive and empty ideal. It is true that the concept of money does motivate the masses and gives them a sense of meaning and purpose, but this is only because the masses do not know how to think for them'selves anyway and are easily lead and fooled, what humanity needs are alternative motivations which are less illusionistic and less destructive to the environment than are capitalism or the pursuit of money. The universe and reality itself presents us with an infinity of possibilities, so why is it that humans in general are consuming, exploiting, and destroying our environment in the pursuit and attainment of an illusion, why should greed be more powerful than reason? The eastern concept of "maya" that suggests that the world is an illusion simply because it is temporary and impermanent does not really make any sense, just because something is temporary and impermanent does not mean that it is not real or is an untruth, it simply means that the world is a temporary truth and is therefore real in the temporary sense. If you are going talk about illusions and develop a theory about them then you have to point out what is an illusion and also what is real about the world in a logical and realistic way, you cannot just say that the world is an illusion because it is temporary and then leave it there without further explanation. For human beings illusions are just as equally important to us as the truth of reality is to us, and if we did not fantasize or imagine things in our lives then our lives would seem dull, boring, and insipid because all we would be doing is facing and contemplating the truth of reality most of the time. The problem with illusions and fantasy though is that humans sometimes get deluded by these mental constructions and they start to think that these illusions are real when in fact they are not real at all, and this situation can be very dangerous because it obscures reason and it is dangerous because we rely on reason for our survival. There are two concepts that can be considered as illusions which have existed in the public mind since the days of plato, and these concepts have created a dangerous duality on the one hand, but have also produced a lot of original and useful theories on the other, the concepts I am referring to are the world of "phenomena" or appearances, and the world of "noumena" but what has become obvious is that these concepts have been useful in provoking people into wanting to know the true nature of reality, and these concepts have made people curious about reality in general and it has also given them the feeling to want to look past the obvious and objective aspects of reality and therefore to seek more into the inner nature of the processes of energy and space, so as to undertand its true nature more fully. Objects in nature should be viewed as a whole, and as a totality, and also as a unity, and also as part of a process, to try and understand the being of an object in nature requires Some reflection and desire to imagine being this object, trying to put oneself in its place by an act of imagination and reflection, and one should repeatedly do this so that a concrete feeling is attained with whatever objects one chooses to experience in this way, one should also research and examine these objects empirically, and also all of the information about these objects should be studied. Some philosophers or thinkers believe that mysticism or mystical revelation involves the use of the faculties of "instinct" and "intuition", but this is an incorrect assumption, and it must be pointed out that these faculties exist within the physical organism for reasons of adaptation and survival. Instinct, and intuition are rational faculties and processes of cognition due to evolution and adaptation in the organism, and even the reflexes in the biological form can be connected to these faculties. Mysticism and the claims it makes must be described as being a combination of imagination, wishful thinking, and hallucination, and therefore exist purely in the mind without empirical evidence to back it up.
There can be no doubt that mysticism is an illusion, and it is true that the faculty of reason involves a connection with the senses and the organism, and is a form of non-contradictory identity of agreement between knowledge and the facts of the senses, but what exists purely in the mind should be distinguished from what exists in the organism in the way of sensibility and empiricism.