Escaping the Illusion: Behind the Disguise of the Physical World

By Michael Milo Faff

Everything is energy. So, why do you see objects like the moon and the Stars, and your car and your puppy dog? How does energy become objects in your world? An interesting question. Maybe, you are in an illusion, disguised so magnificently that it looks like your world. Being an illusion has something to do with fooling your senses into believing something is there, but it isn't.
Since you believe something is there, you have built a structure around the belief to keep it firmly in place. Beliefs are very powerful structures that hold your world in place the way it is. Did you know if you change your beliefs, you change your world? This is not a metaphor; if you change your beliefs, your physical world will change.
Did you know there is no outside world the way you think there is? "Wait a minute now," you may be saying, "This is getting too crazy." You may need to take smaller bites. The book does that. Organized into four parts: Part I - Everything is Already Here, Part II - Finding the Illusion, Part III - Stepping out of the Illusion, and Part IV - Behind the Illusion, it offers a different way of experiencing your world. The parts are not separate, and they do overlap. The pieces appear to flow with the theme of the book.
Have you ever considered that you may not be where you think you are? Maybe you are in a dream that just goes on and on. How might that work? The book, Escaping the Illusion might be the book of ideas to answer those deeper questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098355326

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Copyright © 2021 by Michael Milo Faff

Escaping the Illusion

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

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or any information storage and retrieval system now known or invented,

without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes

to quote brief passages in connection with a review written

for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-09835-531-9

eBook ISBN: 978-1-09835-532-6

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Energy and Other Phenomena

Part I

Everything Is Already Here

Chapter 1

Nothing Is Missing, and Everything Is Here

Chapter 2

The Manifested and the Unmanifested Everything

Part II

Finding the Illusion

Chapter 3

The Problem

Chapter 4

Our Memories

Chapter 5

Our Beliefs

Chapter 6

Our Conscious Awareness

Chapter 7

History

Chapter 8

Mind and Its Forms

Chapter 9

The Eternal Now and Infinity

Chapter 10

Many Worlds

Chapter 11

Where the Physical World Comes From

Chapter 12

Ouch, That Hurts

Chapter 13

No Body Is There

Chapter 14

Finding the Illusion

Part III

Stepping Out of the Illusion

Chapter 15

Outside of the Illusion

Chapter 16

Interpretation, Perception, and Stepping through the Door

Chapter 17

Possibilities in the Freedom of Escape

Chapter 18

Here We Are

Chapter 19

The Subtle Field and Quantum Physics

Part IV

Behind and Beyond the Illusion

Chapter 20

Behind and Beyond

Chapter 21

Creating Anything or Everything

Chapter 22

The All of Us

Chapter 23

Created from The All

Chapter 24

All Paths

Chapter 25

In the End

Afterword

Introduction

Energy and Other Phenomena

Energy is the capacity or ability to do work, like moving something or thinking something. The object we move might be physical, like a rock, or nonphysical, like a thought. Whether the object moved is a rock or a thought, it is energy, because everything is energy. The concept that everything is energy is now a scientific given, and that energy is in the form of energy fields. So, what we think of as physical stuff is ripples of energy in more extensive fields of energy. From that understanding, we recognize that there is no physical stuff.

Therefore, to discuss physical things is to present a subtopic of energy and understand and acknowledge that all is energy. The discussion topic needs to be reformatted into energy and systems of fields of energy. However, because of our earlier education and programming, this may be difficult. Do not look for concrete answers in this reading. The diagrams shown will mostly be viewed as interactive energy systems to reveal a different understanding of the underlying systems. I replaced the physical components of the systems with their energy equivalencies.

The diagrams show how the essential energy flows and not the physicalness of the systems. Questions may arise around the diagrams, such as: Those systems cannot physically operate that way. Can’t you see how the physical elements fit together? My answer would be: I am not looking at the systems as physical things but as energy structures. It is the essence of how the systems function holistically that give us the result observed. Just play with this idea for a while, and let’s follow what happens.

Parts of the Book

I have organized the book in four parts: Part I: Everything Is Already Here, Part II: Finding the Illusion, Part III: Stepping Out of the Illusion, and Part IV: Behind and Beyond the Illusion. The parts are not separate, and they do overlap. The parts seem to flow together to emphasize the theme that the illusion is all around us.

Part I: Everything Is Already Here

In the first section, we embrace the understanding that nothing is missing, and everything is here. How we recognize that everything is already here may be problematic for some.

The chapters in Part I lay out the concept that outside of us is energy in an unmanifested form that operates as a field of awareness responding to our intention. Our inside energy system is what we manifest from the unmanifested energy outside of us.

Between the two systems of the unmanifested everything, and what we have manifested is the lens of our past. Our lens of the past determines what we will manifest inside of us in the present moment. As shown in the diagrams presented in this section, the lens may appear simple and straightforward but is a complex structure in its process to create our world.

The lens uses the unique interrelated structure of our memories. With each new memory added to that structure, the lens shifts a little. Our memory matrix will again shift through the process of changing and reframing an old, profoundly negative memory. By healing and reframing our most extreme negative memories, we improve our life.

Your ego’s vocation is to keep you stuck where you are; therefore, you won’t recognize much change in your lens from new experiences. As you change emotionally significant memories, a more substantial shift in your matrix of memories will occur. This will significantly improve the lens through which you experience the life you have.

Part II: Finding the Illusion

Because of our programming and belief system, finding the illusion in the milieu of everyday life will be problematic for some and will require a change in vision. An overreliance on our physical senses reduces our ability to recognize the illusion in front of us.

Part II is about recognizing the illusion. The illusion is all around us all the time, and it is well disguised in many forms. The illusion isn’t supposed to be recognized by us, yet it’s in all that we sense and in every breath we take. When we sleep at night, the illusion crawls into bed with us, and when we awaken, it follows us to the bathroom. The illusion is closer to us than our underwear. Yet, mostly, it’s not seen.

To pierce the illusion and peer behind its facade can be quite a difficult task at first. Once we collapse the dream, it becomes easier and easier to see through the illusion’s disguises in the egoic world around us.

Even so, do not underestimate the resources of the egoic world to pull us back into the illusion. History is the great stabilizing force of the illusion. To believe that the past exists, we rely on the way we remember it, which is an illusion. Nothing has ever happened the way our memories tell us, and nothing has ever happened in the past.

It might take some time to make peace with the fact that nothing ever happened in the past. Our ego will fight tooth and nail to maintain the illusion of history because the belief that things happened in the past is the cornerstone of the illusory world.

Think of all the things we do to keep the past alive. Think of all the careers built around keeping the past real and alive. Imagine all the time and energy spent on maintaining the history of the past. So many wars have been fought because of the belief that memories are real and that things happened in the past. Oh, how your ego loves the past.

Part III: Stepping Out of the Illusion

What would it be like to step out of the illusion? Few have made that journey and come back. But then, our ego would help us disregard their journey anyway. So the thought of leaving the illusion becomes problematic.

In Part III, we explore the possibility of stepping out of the illusion. To move outside of the illusion is not for beginners. The egoic world might tear us up and spit us out. By stepping out of the illusion, we become a saboteur and call into question the whole illusory world, which is its life and love. Sometimes the best we can do is to be in the world but not of the world. To be in the world but not of the world is a spiritual high-wire act indeed, but it will become easier as we continue to practice our new vision and understanding.

As we recognize everything is here, we recognize that the ability to step beyond the illusion is also here. Supposing we could step out of the illusion, where would we go? We may be surprised that we do not need to journey to the top of a mountain or to an ashram for deep meditation.

Think about the implications of everything being here. Think about the law of attraction. We usually visualize the universe sending us what we have asked to receive. But the universe isn’t sending us anything, because what it could send us is already right here. What we want is right here and waiting for us to reach out and grab. Wouldn’t that be nice to do?

Part IV: Behind and Beyond the Illusion

What might we have to give up to move behind the illusion? What changes for us if we move beyond the illusion? Can we be in the dream of the illusion and yet not in the illusion? Can we be beyond the illusion yet within the illusion? Perhaps we have found more questions than answers.

Talking to Myself

As a way of clarifying my thinking throughout this manuscript, I will, at times, talk to myself. I have put those thoughts in parentheses and italicized them. It is, of course, you I am talking to, but framing these thoughts as talking to myself lets me be frank in my words, and it helps me in my thinking. Now you may think I wrote this book for you, but in truth, I wrote the book for me, and I’m happy you are reading along.

I also talk about the seven principles of Hermes. You might look them up on the internet. I briefly discuss some of the elements, and we won’t delve deeply into that realm. I use the terms The All and The Everything with quotation marks and explain it in the book’s context. In the syntax of linguistics, all and everything might be considered equivalent. The All and The Everything are a little outside of the rules, principles, and processes governing sentence structure. The All is one thing and not separate things. The Everything is all the separate things in The All.

Let’s Begin

Remember, this is an idea book. Don’t take things too seriously, and have fun with this reading. We’re in an illusion, a game of Let’s Pretend. So let’s begin. We might start with the phrase Once upon a time . . . and remember, of course, that everything started before time began.

Part I

Everything

Is Already Here

Chapter 1

Nothing Is Missing, and Everything Is Here

We start with this strange statement: Nothing is missing. If nothing is missing, then everything must be here already. But if everything is right here, then why am I not seeing all that’s here? Not seeing everything may lead us to conclude that the assumption that everything is here must be wrong. For a moment, let’s hold on to the idea that nothing is missing and everything is here. Let’s follow this path for a while and see where that leads us and what we can conclude from this understanding.

Most of us have had the experience of making a date to meet a friend at a restaurant at a given time. Perhaps we are a little early or a little late. We look around for our friend, but he doesn’t appear to have arrived yet. Sitting down where we can watch the door, we wait. After some time, a flicker catches our eye, and a few tables over we see our friend waving at us. He has been here all the time.

Now, there may be many reasons why we didn’t observe him. The fact is, for all our searching, he was not available for us at that first moment. He wasn’t missing, but yet we didn’t spot him. Many times in our life, we look and don’t realize what is right in front of us.

To be aware of or to recognize something, we need some experience or reference to that something. Our experiences and reference information are our memories of past interpretations of events. They are stored in a place we call permanent memory. Now, for all our looking, no one has ever found where we keep our permanent memories, and we have been looking for a very long time. There are many ideas and theories about the location of memories brought forward by science and philosophy. But there is nothing you can count on or take to the bank.

The location of permanent memories is called the subconscious mind or unconscious mind. Although there is a name for the location of permanent memories, the location itself is unknown. (Can you appreciate how frustrating this is? You have permanent memories because you can recall old memories after many years, and like magic, back comes the memory into your active-mind. Where are your memories when you aren’t thinking of them? In permanent memory. Think of that memory again, and the memory pops right back up in your active-mind. It seems to come and go at the whim of your mind.)

Where are memories stored when we are not thinking of them? We’ll leave that for a later discussion. We can think of that place as a big warehouse or supercomputer of memories of all our experiences and references.

Our senses are probing the outside infinite energy field for us all the time. Immediately upon detecting a disturbance in that infinite field, the information is picked up by our senses and delivered to the subconscious mind for review. If we have any prior knowledge of the input data, that knowledge indicates it’s important. Finding new incoming information that matches our memory bank’s data in the subconscious mind would indicate the data has meaning. But when the incoming data doesn’t match what we know from our past experiences, it’s worthless and can’t be used, at least at that moment, and is disregarded.

(Of course, you are not aware that all this matching and comparing and selecting incoming information is going on. It is happening so fast and way outside of your conscious awareness. The conscious mind is unaware of all this matching and dropping out of data. Therefore, you also are oblivious to that fact. The selecting and dropping out of data are always streaming through the mind. You are never aware of the removal of any data. All the information deemed unimportant to you at that