Is the World Real or Illusory?

By Christina Strutt

It would be so easy to choose one answer over the other. The world must be either real or illusory! Yet my experience dictates otherwise, and my heart insists on another way. So here I share a third choice highlighting the assumption hidden within the question – that the answer must be one or the other. What if the world is BOTH? But surely, they cannot be both! Says who?

René Descartes, the 17^th Century scientist and philosopher, taught that the way to deal with something complex was to break it into component parts and analyze each part separately. This idea is central to Western-style education, particularly scientists. Do you notice the centuries-old assumption? That a part is the same when separated as it is when within the whole? Do you see what’s missing? Relationship is missing! As it turns out, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts because it is transformed by relationship – all that fills the space in between, in constant movement. Descartes missed that!

But we love labeling things and to debate, to sort everything into a correct pigeonhole – real or illusion. So comforting! Yet what if labels and pigeonholes are no longer useful? This or that, higher or lower, better or worse. What if we really need to examine our entire framework of pigeonholes? What if it’s not so much about atoms/things/people? What if it’s more about perpetual quantum motion in the invisible space between? What if it’s Both/And?

What if relationship is everything? As a systems engineer tasked in the 80’s and 90’s with moving an entire high-tech division of thousands of engineers and managers from entrenched “component thinking” into “systems thinking,” I know how painful the questioning of previously unnoticed assumptions can be, and how energetically many will resist.

In kindergarten we are taught to share. We share magic markers, each creating our own masterpiece side-by-side – Both/And. When we want the same favorite purple marker we take turns. You color then I color then you color again and then I color again, sharing a single marker over time – again Both/And. We learn to co-exist in harmony over space and time. Native Amazonians coming out of the Brazilian jungle for the very first time, walking across rolling fields, were convinced that cows dotting the hills in the distance were ants. Having lived in dense undergrowth under a towering canopy, their optic-nerve-brain-systems interpreted what they saw as nearby ants, rather than the way our optic-nerve-brain-systems would interpret what we saw as large animals viewed from a distance.

Whose perspective is “right”? The answer again is Both/And. It’s all relative. What do we understand to be the foundational building blocks of all matter/form? For Newtonian physicists, it is atoms; for Quantum physicists — who demonstrate the existence of a plethora of sub-atomic particles — it is fermions, bosons, and perhaps more.

My current questions and answers shared here (I, too, am always discovering more) reflect years of lived experience – 45 as a systems engineer/systems thinker, 26 living A Course in Miracles, and 10 living A Course of Love – ever-more-inclusive answers, arriving as my ability to live them grows to match my willingness. Here is my dual litmus test: Is this creating more joining, union, inclusivity, and love in my life rather than separation, divisiveness, exclusivity, and fear? And is this moving me deeper into trusting the wisdom that is already within each one of us?

So ask me “Is the world an illusion?” and I’ll answer “Yes and No!” Yes, because Newtonian science dictates that the world is static, and no because Quantum science demonstrates that it is in constant movement at the speed of light. Yes, because the world is illusory when separated out from the whole and observed by me in separation. And no because the world is in constant movement in relationship with the whole and in relationship with me – movement that is invisible to the human eye yet demonstrable in quantum science and palpable to divine vision.

The world is seen, felt, and cocreated in the present moment by us – divine human beings joining in union and relationship with each other and with all of everything. Matter forms and re-forms moment by moment in response to the way it is observed and held in observance by each of us. It is our state of consciousness/awareness/woke’ness that determines our experience of the world/physical reality. Ours is a state of awareness which is itself in constant movement, in a reciprocal dance of cocreating and being cocreated through our willingness and wholehearted devotion to choosing love moment-to-moment and joining with all of everything.

So why do we insist on the world having to be EITHER real OR illusory? Why can’t it be BOTH/AND? And what if it is BOTH/AND? It simply depends on the One who’s looking AND on when the One who’s looking, is looking. Remember kindergarten and the ant-cows? It’s a Quantum Space–Time Continuum thing.

You have been wrong about the world because you have misjudged yourself. From such a twisted reference point what could you see? All vision starts with the perceiver who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false he does not see. You who would judge reality cannot see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. – ACIM, T-13.VII.5:1-5

The emphasis of this course always remains the same—it is at this moment that complete salvation is offered you, and it is at this moment that you can accept it. This is still your one responsibility. Atonement might be equated with total escape from the past and total lack of interest in the future. Heaven is here. There is nowhere else. Heaven is now. There is no other time. – ACIM, M-24.6

Your mind would tell you that a chair is a chair and regard it as a fact. Through the learning you have done since your birth, you have come to recognize a chair as having certain properties, the most essential of which is that it is a structure on which to sit. The exercises of A Course in Miracles began with asking you to call into question these beliefs in known, observable, facts. You may have regarded these exercises as silly or you may have thought of the lessons of physics and felt as if you understood these exercises on an intellectual level. But what these exercises have prepared you for is an acceptance of the ongoing change that is creation; an acceptance that something can be what it is, a known fact, an object with an identity, but also part of the ongoing nature of creation. Could this be true of a chair and not be true of you? – ACOL, T2:6.7

The only response is Love. The only time is Now. And We are the Ones. – Christina Strutt

We are constantly choosing and cocreating our world in “the ongoing change that is creation”. Real “at this moment” as we join with all that is in front of us, and illusory “whenever judgment enters“ and we slip away from “this moment“ losing ourselves in past pain or future fear. Real as we seamlessly experience ourselves BOTH as uniquely differentiated human beings AND as blissful Oneness. “Heaven is now. There is no other time.“

Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within. – ACIM, T-18.VI.1:5-6

Quantum science supports my experience that the world is neither real nor illusion, rather it is Both/And. Watch this five-minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc of the Double Slit Experiment first done in 1801 by English physicist Thomas Young, and since repeated hundreds of times all over the world. It demonstrates that light is BOTH wave AND particle. Light is BOTH quantum AND atomic, existing as infinite potentiality and collapsing into specific form when observed. In other words, the world of form is cocreated in relationship with the observer – you and me.

This is a perfect example of space–time quantum weirdness that’s hard to put onto paper and one that caused much public debate on the true nature of reality between scientists Albert Einstein and Neils Bohr, the kind of debate none of us really want to spend our energy on, for we know there is another way. A NEW way. We remember that the important question is not “Is the world Real or Illusory?” but rather, “Can the world be Both/And?”. We are BOTH Love as light waves AND Love as particles of matter – both infinite multi-dimensional beings and 3D form. Why not rest in this NOW moment, joining in relationship with all, inviting the forming and in-forming of whatever is needed here and now? Consider:

In chasing the mystery of light Einstein developed the theory of relativity, establishing that at the speed of light, time ceases to exist. A photon, which has no mass, can cross the cosmos without using any energy. So for light beams, time and space do not exist. Recently quantum physicists have described light as the foundation of reality. This is profoundly significant when we realize that quantum theory is considered the most successful scientific formulation in history and that 50 percent of our current technology is based on it. According to theoretical physicist David Bohm, ‘Light is energy and also information, content, form, and structure. It’s the potential of everything. – Dr. Jacob Israel Liberman, Luminous Life

Christ’s Face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it. … All living hearts are tranquil, with a stir of deep anticipation, for the time of everlasting things is now at hand. There is no death. The Son of God is free. … All things are seen in light, and in the light their purpose is transformed and understood. – ACIM, M-28.2:6-7&28.4:1-3

To sustain Christ-consciousness in form is creation of the new. My one example life could not sustain Christ-consciousness for those who came after me but could only be an example. What you are called to do is to, through your multitude, sustain Christ-consciousness, and thus create the union of the human and the divine as a new state of being. – ACOL, T4:4.18

The other day I watched Trevor Noah respond to a scathing rebuke from the French ambassador for having congratulated BOTH France AND Africa on his “The Daily Show” for winning the 2018 World Cup! For those who haven’t been tracking, that’s the highest trophy for football (soccer in the US). France won this year with a squad of 23 players, 15 of whom have African roots, meaning their parents are from African countries. Noah asks, “Why can’t the players be BOTH? French AND African? In order to be French do they have to erase everything that is African? Why can they not be African and French at the same time?”

Surely celebrating the players’ “African-ness” in no way diminishes their “French-ness.” Just as celebrating our humanity in no way diminishes our divinity. Living the message of ACIM and ACOL is showing me that this is the place Jesus invites us to. A new state of being: BOTH human AND divine, BOTH informing AND informed as the embodiment of love. Returning us all in union and relationship to being and demonstrating love, love endlessly expressing itself in form. This is the New. This is heaven on earth. This is all we are called to do – to be – together. For my heart knows that not one of us is home unless and until each and every one of us is home. The only question remaining is, “How shall we respond?”

Christina Strutt is devoted to living love in form, joining in cocreating joy, abundance, harmony and clarity as best she can wherever she is. Her most practical experiences are distilled and shared at www.CoCreatingClarity.org and she welcomes dialogue at Christina@CoCreatingClarity.org.