In Adrian Lyne’s 1990 film Jacob’s Ladder, what appears to be one man’s reality is nothing more than a dream – horrible, twisted and strange. Can this be what is going on with all of us? The great Hindu sage Yogananda taught the eastern precept that this thing we call reality is nothing but a great dramatic dream that the higher part of our consciousness is having. We all are the writers, actors and directors of it. My friend Jay tells me that this is nonsense. He, being a man of utter truth and fact, feels that for the entire population of this planet to be having the same dream of reality must mean that this all is real. Who then is correct?
If this third dimension we are existing in is totally real and actual, can it be that with all the evolution of our species over the vast centuries, that a great nation like Germany could allow itself to be overcome by the Nazi movement? That so many Germans of all religions and intellectual levels could allow such a mindset to overwhelm them? The very act of overt torture, humiliation and finally extermination of millions of people could be allowed to occur? Less than 30 years previous to that, the Armenian genocide saw millions of people exterminated. How could such things have happened in the twentieth century? Is this all what reality is about? Or could this all be part of some dream that would end at the other side of this veil of what we call a lifetime?
Fast forward to the year 2000 in our own nation, America. How could a society as (supposedly) well versed as our own allow a total jackass like George W Bush to not only become its president, but for two terms? How could a nation as advanced as our own allow a few devious leaders to propagandize us into a phony attack on another nation that had nothing to do with our security or safety? With all the facts and truths out there to dispel such insanity, why then did it still occur? Alice through the looking glass understood it all when she finally realized that ‘up is down and black is white …’
To this writer and seeker of truth the great teacher Yogananda was correct. When each of us wakes up on the other side of this veil of dreams, reality will first set in.
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