Delusion versus Reality

Text of audio column by Debby Bruck

Delusion versus Reality

Welcome to Innerchange 2008 with Debby Bruck. This month's talk entitled, "Delusion versus Reality," is dedicated to my mentor Melissa Burch of InnerHealth, Cambridge, Massachusetts. A woman of fortitude and vision, Melissa motivates her apprentices to pursue their dreams and goals.
Together we strive to help heal the earth by creating bonds of communication - spreading the good work of homeopaths around the world. An exemplary model for moving forward through obstacles, illness, and set-backs of all kinds, Melissa has been my guiding light to continue learning, studying, and helping others unravel their inner fears, worries, phobias, nightmares and delusions so that we may evolve into kinder, gentler human beings.

One of Yanki Tauber's insightful commentaries inspired me to come to a deeper understanding of the human delusion experience. Yanki underscores that when we believe our surroundings oppress and isolate us, we exile ourselves from a connected relationship with G-d. We cannot arrive at the land of freedom without G-d's hand. We become stuck in a veiled life of self-deception, easily understood as ego rationalizations and cover ups.
The opposing forces of illusion or delusion versus reality, falsehood versus truth, and slavery versus freedom sums up the basic dichotomy of man's connect or disconnect with an everlasting One G-d Creator.

Defining terms: Illusion and Reality

We can define illusion/delusion as the act of deceiving or being misled.
In this particular context we refer to self-deception as that which misleads our true self from finding its source. Our inner voice mumbles ideas, tells us what to do and where to go either giving or taking motivations to act or rationalizations for inaction. Those individual delusions and perspectives constantly direct us in life. Sometimes it feels so real that we can almost touch it. And with the help of some healers we are guided to envision that delusion - truly making it tangible. With professional help, those layered veils that dress up our inner truth may abruptly or gradually disappear.

What we experience as our reality includes real events, people, things and conditions. Have you ever awoken from a dream or been startled from a nightmare and thought, "Gosh, that felt real!" Can we say that "reality TV" is real life? How do we reconcile these experiences? Perhaps we do have the power to create our own reality?

Reality refers to one's existence as genuine, that which takes place at a moment in time; as opposed to an imaginary existence, idealized or false in nature. We believe reality actually exists or happens in 'real life' and that this 'real' event can be viewed as fact or true. But if each person lives in this world within the boundaries of time and space then there are relationships that can change the perception from one person to another. As my husband says, "Perception is reality." If a group of people attend a seminar, go to a concert, or eat a meal, each will come away with a different experience. Each person will be involved in his or her own reality; all of them are valid and true from their perspective. If each person has his own reality, because the mind, emotions and intellect filter each experience, can we learn more about our own individual delusions that effect that reality? Can we affect our delusions to the point that we change our reality?

We turn to this month's Torah Portion from the Five Books of Moses to get a universal message on delusion versus reality. Reading from "Mishpatim" in the Book of Exodus chapter 21 of the civil laws, we find rules for purchasing, treating, keeping and letting go of slaves. Remember that "slaves" in the Torah have many rights and privileges, and specifications for their freedom. The law speaks of particular relationships between Master and Slave as if they are part of one household.

Torah Reading lines 1 - 6 from chapter 21:

"1. And these are the ordinances that you shall set before them. 2. Should you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall work [for] six years, and in the seventh [year], he shall go out to freedom without charge. 3. If he comes [in] alone, he shall go out alone; if he is a married man, his wife shall go out with him. 4. If his master gives him a wife, and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and he shall go out alone. 5. But if the slave says, "I love my master, my wife, and my children. I will not go free," 6. his master shall bring him to the judges, and he shall bring him to the door or to the doorpost, and his master shall bore his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him forever."

The portion continues with more particulars between slave and master, underscoring these delusions, behaviors and outcomes. This indicates whatever life situation a person gets into based upon how the person considers the relationship determines the result and consequence of such mode of action and thinking. From these intricate and complex relationships we can interpret and extrapolate human nature and moral codes.

Specifically from the section quoted above we see that if a slave desires to go free he can in the seventh year; but if he places additional conditions upon him self he will not go free. In fact, by admitting he wants to be bound to serve another human, instead of his Creator, the law states there must be an outward physical sign to show the community his choice.

This month's reading parallels our topic of delusion versus reality in a major way. As individuals we all want to be free, not to be a slave of physical desires, limited bodies, or under the control of another or a self-made delusion. Our conflict can be seen to be more internal than external. For although we may have a physical limitation or find ourselves in a power struggle, in the final analysis the way we respond to these situations determines whether we feel free or enslaved.

Healing our Delusions

Over the past 18 months I have been studying a therapeutic modality that focuses upon discovering each individual's personal filter to their world.
The correlation to delusion versus reality, falsehood versus truth, and slavery versus freedom can be elucidated. Exposing the delusion in a systematic, sensitive, and self revealing manner enables the individual to experience an "ah-ha" moment. With this information out in the open, it is difficult to continue with the self-deception and one can establish a turning point toward freeing the bonds of past delusions.

The method of which I speak comes from the Indian homeopath Rajan Sankaran. In simple terms, it is thought that physical disease and illness originate with emotional, mental or intellectual imbalances. The delusions become useful tools in a person's life to deal with uncomfortable, fearful or threatening situations but reside within a person's psyche even after the original cause has gone. Therefore the therapist helps the individual realize, describe and come face-to-face with their delusion in order to find a matching energy to release that bond.

Rajan Sankaran explains it beautifully in his book "Spirit of Homeopathy" that, "Delusion in this sense means: having a distorted view of a situation. And the awareness of this distorted view (on a mental, emotional and physical level) is cure and enables you to see and feel the situation as it is and act in proportion and appropriately to that situation. Disease is in this case the way we look at the present with eyes that still see the past, which is a delusion. Feeling the unfelt pain from the past (integration) makes the insensitivities and hypersensitivities superfluous (were only there to keep the unfelt pain repressed), so we can take it to become aware of the delusion and see the present as it is.

And the guiding text of homeopathy rests with Samuel Hahnemann's "Organon". Paragraph 7 states, "Since one may know a disease only by its symptoms, when there is no obvious exciting or sustaining cause (causa occasionalis) to be removed [i.e. a splinter, burn, broken bone, etc.], "it is evident that only the symptoms, together with any possible miasm [hereditary disease] and additional circumstances, must guide the choice of the appropriate, curative medicine (par.5)."

The disordered state or delusion may reside on the emotional, mental, physical or spiritual plane. It is my hope that we may discover our own delusions to reveal layers of truth and understanding enabling us to live in freedom connected to Our Creator. May we learn, grow and fulfill our potential and purpose on this earth.

Meditation: Psalms Chapter 139

Take a few minutes to breath in the words of King David from Psalms interpreted by Yoseph Yitzchok. Sitting in a relaxed but stable position breath in and out deeply and rhythmically.

Chapter 139

1. For the Conductor, by David, a psalm. O Lord, You have probed me, and You know.2. You know my sitting down and my standing up; You perceive my thought from afar.3. You encircle my going about and my lying down; You are familiar with all my paths. 4. For there was not yet a word on my tongue-and behold, Lord, You knew it all. 5. You have besieged me front and back, You have laid Your hand upon me.6. Knowledge [to escape You] is beyond me; it is exalted, I cannot know it. 7. Where can I go [to escape] Your spirit? And where can I flee from Your presence? 8. If I ascend to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the grave, behold, You are there.9. Were I to take up wings as the dawn and dwell in the furthest part of the sea, 10. there, too, Your hand would guide me; Your right hand would hold me. 11. Were I to say, "Surely the darkness will shadow me," then the night would be as light around me. 12. Even the darkness obscures nothing from You; and the night shines like the day-the darkness is as light. 13. For You created my mind; You covered me in my mother's womb. 14. I will thank You, for I was formed in an awesome and wondrous way; unfathomable are Your works, though my soul perceives much. 15. My essence was not hidden from You even while I was born in concealment, formed in the depths of the earth. 16. Your eyes beheld my raw form; all [happenings] are inscribed in Your book, even those to be formed in future days-to Him they are the same. 17. How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How overwhelming, [even] their beginnings! 18. Were I to count them, they would outnumber the sand, even if I were to remain awake and always with You. 19. O that You would slay the wicked, O God, and men of blood [to whom I say], "Depart from me!" 20. They exalt You for wicked schemes, Your enemies raise [You] for falsehood. 21. Indeed, I hate those who hate You, Lord; I contend with those who rise up against You. 22. I hate them with the utmost hatred; I regard them as my own enemies. 23. Search me, Lord, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. 24. See if there is a vexing way in me, then lead me in the way of the world.

You have been reading or listening to the Innerchange Jan/Feb 2008 issue "Delusion Versus Reality" written and read by Debby Bruck, a student of Kabbalah and Homeopath practicing the Sensation Method. For more information go to www.homeopage.com

References:
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/102539/jewish/The-Fake-Enemy.htm

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/illusion

http://www.hahnemanninstituut.nl/index.php?lang=nl&&page=51

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