Quotes on Illusion

It is no use dealing with illusions and make-believes. We must look at the facts. The world ... is too dangerous for anyone to be able to afford to nurse illusions. We must look at realities.

In liberation, you stand alone. You stand alone because you need no supports of any kind. You need no supports because you have realized that the very notion of a separate you no longer exists, that there is nothing to support, that the whole ego experience was a flimsy illusion. So you stand alone but are never, never lonely because everywhere you look, all you see is That, and you are That.

You know, a lot of things changed. What never changed is the illusion to keep playing tennis, the illusion to keep doing well the things, and the illusion to be in a good position of the ranking and play these kind of matches.

Nada is found within. It is a music without strings which plays in the body. It penetrates the inner and outer and leads you away from illusion.

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present - love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure - the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.

The fact that man produces a concept "I" besides the totality of his mental and emotional experiences or perceptions does not prove that there must be any specific existence behind such a concept. We are succumbing to illusions produced by our self-created language, without reaching a better understanding of anything. Most of so-called philosophy is due to this kind of fallacy.

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

For you who no longer possess it, freedom is everything, for us who do, it is merely an illusion.

Love thy neighbor as thyself because you are your neighbor. It is illusion that makes you think that your neighbor is someone other than yourself.

We must first realize that dancing is an absolutely independent art, not merely a secondary accompanying one. I believe that it is one of the great arts. . . . The important thing in ballet is the movement itself. A ballet may contain a story, but the visual spectacle . . . is the essential element. The choreographer and the dancer must remember that they reach the audience through the eye. It's the illusion created which convinces the audience, much as it is with the work of a magician.

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.

This world may be only illusion -- but it's the only illusion we've got.

That’s the great illusion of travel, of course, the notion that there’s somewhere to get to. A place where you can finally say, Ah, I’ve arrived. (Of course there is no such place. There’s only a succession of waitings until you go home.)

Music is a big factor in helping the illusion of the film come to life. The same way music brings back different periods of our lives.

I still haven't gotten over this thing of walking down the street and somebody recognizing you because you've been in a movie. There's this illusion that movie stars only exist in the movies. And to see one live is like seeing a leopard let out of the zoo.

I must say that the biggest lesson you can learn in life, or teach your children, is that life is not castles in the skies, happily ever after. The biggest lesson we have to give our children is truth. We're all built with illusions. And they break.

There is no inherent awakening power in cultural forms that have become dissociated from the wisdom and practicality that gave birth to them. They turn into illusions themselves and become part of the drama of religious culture. Although they can make us happy temporarily, they can't free us from suffering, so at some point, they become a source of disappointment and discouragement. Eventually, these forms may inspire nothing more than resistance to their authority.

People with autism never, ever feel at ease, wherever we are. Because of this, we wander off - or run away - in search of some location where we do feel at ease. While we're on this search, it doesn't occur to us to consider how or where we're going to end up. We get swallowed up by the illusion that unless we can find a place to belong, we are going to be all alone in the world.

Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perennially rejuvenated illusions.

We have dreamt of every woman there is, and dreamt too of the miracle that would bring us the pleasure of being a woman, for women have all the qualities - courage, passion, the capacity to love, cunning - whereas all our imagination can do is naively pile up the illusion of courage.

Success on a cosmic level completely eludes me. I'm deeply suspicious of things being too good. It's part of my superstition, I think, to generate pain in order to give the illusion of gain. I'm not saying I reject success, but honestly, I don't quite know how to deal with it. It's an old feeling: As soon as you have the thing you've been going after all your life, that reasonable degree of security, you start kicking against it, doubting it.