Why Live a Life of Illusion?

Should we live a life of illusion? The question that comes to me is that if I know that the pizza in front of me is plastic, would I still pick that plastic pizza and put it on my plate and then admire it, smell it and look forward to eating it? When I know that it is a plastic pizza, then what is the point in dreaming of eating this “delicious” meal?

I know that this world is like a plastic pizza, it is not to be eaten; because this world is a transitory world, a temporary world. This world is not real! At the end, death will face me. I know it; I know that I am not this body, this mind - I am something else. I am the Energy that is inside, I am the Soul, the Divine Power, then why do I live a life of illusion? Why do I get so engrossed in this world, in buying properties and enjoying pleasures, building relationships that will eventually surmount to be nothing,; everything has to be left behind. It seems real today, like the plastic pizza is real in front of my eyes, but I can’t devour it, I can’t eat it, and similarly, I can’t have this world – I can’t because this world is not mine. It is like me checking into a hotel room and thinking that the hotel belongs to me. No, the hotel doesn’t belong to me; the room doesn’t belong to me. I am just a guest and I have to move on eventually. Life too is like that. I know I have to move on. Then why am I living this life of illusion? Should I not wake up? Should I not get on to truly living a life that is real? Should I not realize the truth?

AiR

This is an issue of perspective;

  1. From P1, we infer Life is an illusion
  2. From P2, P1 itself is an illusion.
  3. The conclusion that Life is an illusion is not itself real.

So there is no real-illusion to run away from.
Since there is no real-illusion, one will have to live with reality.

For example a river just cannot decide to stop flowing [because it infer its existence is an illusion] but has to flow in accordance to the forces and contours of reality.
It is the same for human life, one ‘has to’ flow with the forces and contours of reality.
This ‘has to’ must be cultivated to be ‘as spontaneous as possible’.

The pizza analogy is poor. You can’t eat a plastic pizza but you can enjoy everything that the world has to offer while you are alive.

What does it mean “to eat the world”?

What does your death have to do with the current reality that you are living?

Why do you need to “have this world”? What does that mean?

But while you are staying at the hotel, you can enjoy it. Why not?
If a person is on vacation, then he is not constantly complaining that it will end.

“How was your vacation?
It sucked. It was an illusion because it ended.
What??”

I think that you have separated the components of your self (body, mind and spirit), so much that you now deny the reality of the physical body and the physical world.

That does not seem like a good thing to be doing.

Ok AiR I have a few questions for you.

What else can you do besides eating the pizza? You seem anhedonic, like you can’t taste the pizza because it feels fake. I can relate to you, sometimes I get in that zone where food feels like a plastic preschool-fake-chef charade to me. However, I must ask, what else can you do besides eating the pizza?
Without food you will die. And what stimulation does “feeling the truth” bring? Like once you realized the truth, where do you go from there? A feedback loop of re-realizing the truth every two seconds?

Furthermore, when you die, where do you go from there?

I am a trinity of body, mind and spirit. None of these aspects of my Self amount to illusion. The illusion is that spirit is real but body is not. No part of my trinity can be considered real by asserting that the other parts are illusions. I need all three parts to be whole.