What Is Real?

Typing on my laptop, I hear my phone ding with an email notification and then a text. I turn to look at them and then back to my laptop screen. After a while, I need a break, so I log on to my social-media account, and I scroll. Before I know it, half an hour has passed. Pulling myself away from the reels and stories of people I have never met in my life, I slowly look up and realize that my young daughter has been sitting next to me, and I hardly noticed her.

That’s a scenario most of us may have found ourselves in at some point. While watching strangers’ lives and switching from work to answering messages all on a screen, I barely saw my own daughter. I was so drawn into a virtual version of reality that I forgot to be with this human being, whom I love and who was sitting right next to me.

As our world races toward technological advancement, we find ourselves caught up in versions of reality that are further and further away from the truth. Even while writing this essay, the wonders of AI have dropped in with offers of help. If we relegated all our tasks, our work, our ways of being to technology, what would happen to our creativity; our minds, which need both rest and healthy stimulation; and the social aspects of our being, which crave real human connection?

Of course, the benefits of and necessity for technology and its far-reaching effects are not in question. But amid all this evolution – revolution? – it is necessary to keep asking ourselves: what is real?

Our spiritual seeking also arrives at this question. The masters tell us that we are born in illusion, we live in illusion, and we die in illusion. Even without the extra layers of technology and virtual reality, we are so far away from the truth. But do we really want to sleepwalk through this life, mistaking dreams for reality, unaware of our purpose and the self that is true?

Our yearning for truth is the soul yearning for its origin. And it is only through the meditation process that we can begin to identify with the truth. Saints tell us that everything, everything is an illusion. Only the Shabd is real.

The Master is telling us that our world, our relationships, and this body we adore is only a perception and a reflection of the truth. Reality is Shabd, the governing and sustaining power of God that permeates every particle of this creation. The dilemma, the irony is that even as the Shabd is the very essence of all things, we are so caught up in illusion that we don’t realize this.

So, what is illusion? It is something that only resembles the real thing but is not real. It is just an impression or semblance of the truth. It is because of this veil of maya (or illusion) that we experience change and feel separation. We are not the same now as we were when we were babies, and we will not be the same as we age and die one day. The world around us changes every moment.

In contrast, truth is permanent, eternal, and complete. That is what we seek. In the Dao De Jing, we read about this truth, the all-encompassing energy or Word of God, which the ancient Chinese mystics called Dao:

Dao is hidden, nameless.
Dao is the ultimate provider.
Once attained it suffices for all eternity.

Our Master teaches us about reality; in fact, he constantly points us to it. He asks us to be accountable for our lives, our attention, and what we choose to do with the limited breath we have been given. So, will we steep ourselves deeper in this illusion, or will we wake up and reach for the real?

From you, I have learned to serve;
From you, I have learned to meditate;
From you, I have realized the essence of reality.
_{Guru Arjan Dev, Adi Granth}