It Was All a Dream

Imagine a world where everything is as beautiful as you could possibly dream it to be. This is a world where, when you look up to the stars at night, you sense in your depths that there is so much more to life than the minute disturbances we encounter. It is the sudden realization of this that brings about such a peace within you. You are overtaken by it and come to experience something that the only proper name you could give it would be Divine. Suddenly, something within you clicks, and you come to recognize yourself for who you truly are. Your heart begins to fill with warmth as you become more and more aware of those universal symbols that bless the sky with their luminous glow just as one soars across the darkness, and you instantly understand exactly what it is that life has been speaking to you. You can't help but take a deep breath as you go within yourself and realize that the same luminous glow you see radiated in the night sky is also inside of you.

Captivated by the sheer beauty of what you have just experienced, you choose to embrace it deeper and expand your mind to where you begin to profoundly ponder the connections between yourself and the universe. Once again, you look up to the stars and realize that they are not the ones that are creating light; instead, light is what's creating the stars. They are filled with so much life! In that specific moment, you come to comprehend the exact magnitude of what you have discovered. If light created the stars, and you (like the stars) are also created of light, then everything else must also be light. Therefore the space that is found between all the different expressions of light we see and at one point understood to be empty is actually far from that. In that empty space is more than we humans can possibly fathom.

Suddenly you obtain the clarity that everything that exists is actually connected. You come to understand that without life, you and everything else could not exist, because life is the essence of the Creator who creates all things. Everything that exists is a manifestation of the same infinite potential, the same source of life that is also within you. In truly comprehending the depth of that statement, you can't help but notice the truth of it because there is not anything in our universe that is not a reflection of the Creator. All matter is a representation of the essence of God. But how is it that we awaken others to this reality?

The only proper answer would be enlightening them on your discovery and speaking to them the truth that you have just found. But the problem is that the more you attempt to wake up others from their dream, the more those individuals judge you according their own perceptions and beliefs. It is at this moment that you once again come to another realization. It is at this moment that you also come to realize many individuals are living without any awareness — in other words, without truly knowing who or what they really are. The lenses of their minds are clouded by this sort of fog, and it is this fog that determines their interpretations of life.

This clouding of the mind happens because humans dream all the time. Dreaming is the main function of the mind, so much so that the mind dreams nonstop. It does not matter if we are awake or are asleep; the mind is dreaming. The only difference between the two states is that when we are asleep, we perceive things according to a certain mindset that allows us to "understand" life according to a frame of reference that is derived from a lower aspect of ourselves. (Hint: your frame of reference is based off of your level of consciousness, and that is something we will go more into detail in the next several chapters.) However, when we are awake, we have the opportunity to no longer permit this lower aspect of ourselves to serve as our primary frame of reference, and the experience of life that we encounter is one that we are able to maintain power over and constantly exert our ability to alter it. Understanding the mind and what it is responsible for allows us to comprehend the true nature of reality, and therefore we have the ability to create the reality that is best suited for our evolution and the expansion of our consciousness. It is by way of this evolution and expansion of consciousness that we are able to make alterations and can become greater than what we presently are.

This is key, because before you and I were even born, the humans who lived before us established a dream that ventured well beyond themselves. Society is but the collective dream of billions upon billions of smaller and more personal dreams. These dreams come together to form the created dream of a family, community, city, country, and ultimately humanity. These dreams are different parts of reality that intermingle with one another but exist at the same time at their own level. Within these dreams lie everyone's values, perceptions, and beliefs, their guidelines for living, so to say. Within these dreams are the foundations for society's rules, laws, cultures, ways of being, and what constitutes the many governments and religions of the world. Considering that we are all born with the capability to learn, the humans who lived before us teach us to dream the same way that they do. This collective dream has within it so many rules that, unbeknownst to a newborn, instilled into his or her mind are the guidelines for living of someone else.

These guidelines for living are what gave way to the need of finding a method to have them spread out to others. Language was the way that this was accomplished. It is language that shapes what we "see." Its creation is one that dates back many centuries. In his fascinating book Sapiens, historian Yuval Noah Harari speaks about the importance of language in what he calls the cognitive revolution. It is he who puts forward the idea that our ancestors first used language to let one another know about certain opportunities. It was this intercommunication between individuals that provided them with the knowledge of not going to a certain area because there was a predator there. It was also this intercommunication that provided individuals with the knowledge that it was now safe to go to a certain area, because the predator was gone.

Together, we became more aware. This awareness allowed us the ability to plan better and prevail over challenges. Ultimately, it was better planning on our behalf that permitted us to come up with solutions to problems and then teach those solutions to others. It is through these aspects that language made its way to being one of the main building blocks of small societies and...