
“Consciousness is the ultimate Reality; compared with it, all else is illusion.”
Source: Thinking and Destiny (1946), Ch. 9, Re-Existence, p. 620
Source: The Void Captain's Tale (1983), Chapter 13 (p. 164)
“Consciousness is the ultimate Reality; compared with it, all else is illusion.”
Source: Thinking and Destiny (1946), Ch. 9, Re-Existence, p. 620
“The illusion of free will… is itself an illusion.”
Sam Harris at Sydney Opera House Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2012, Discussion on Free Will http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM3raA1EwrI.
2010s
Context: The illusion of free will... is itself an illusion. There is no illusion of free will. Thoughts and intentions simply arise. What else could they do? Now, some of you might think this sounds depressing, but it's actually incredibly freeing to see life this way. It does take something away from life: what it takes away from life is an egocentric view of life. We're not truly separate: we are linked to one another, we are linked to the world, we are linked to our past, and to history. And what we do actually matters because of that linkage, because of the permeability, because of the fact that we can't be the true locus of responsibility. That's what makes it all matter.
“Games are enactments, and the act of playing is an illusion of the illusion of the reality”
Make Your Own 3D Illusions (2014).
Context: We long for a technological world, while keeping the natural aspect of our environment; we want the progress, while maintaining the traditions; we want organization while preserving individual freedom; we produce at a large scale while looking for unique products; we want clearness in our relationships, while we like to play with the ambiguity; we wish everlasting happiness while seeking incomparable magic moments… In reality, from all these contradictions, we are looking for only one thing: ASTONISHMENT. We would life to astonish us every day! That’s why we all, human beings, love playing, because games are synonymous of risk and astonishment. Games are enactments, and the act of playing is an illusion of the illusion of the reality.
Original: (hi) Brahma satyam jagat mithyam, jivo brahmaiva naparah
1:73
"Quotes", Late Notebooks, 1982–1990: Architecture of the Spiritual World (2002)