Illusion (n): 1) The faulty perception of an external object. 2) Something that deceives by producing a false impression of reality. 3) A misleading perception of visual stimuli. (Random House Webster’s Dictionary)
Of course, it is also a confounding possibility that the very duality that assumes external objects is an illusion. Much philosophical exploration has been concerned with just this problem. But, look at definition 2. Initially, we might think that that “something” which deceives us is the external object itself, or even the play of light and shadow, or, even when we are talking about the truth of situations as well as objects, that pesky thing we call perspective. But, what about thinking about our own ego/self as the something? That changes the game. And so, again, the object of our examination is this ego, this self—what it is, from where it comes, what it does, and how much we mistake it for who we really are.
Rather than getting caught up in the dark forest of rationality that is the discussion of duality vs. non-duality, let’s just focus initially on the illusions and where they come from, for we may just be able to get our answers about duality from this angle. In fact, I think that we must abandon the angle of Western philosophical rationality in order to discover the truth of these issues. This is what so many seekers have discovered about the inadequacy of the Western rational system.
One simple way to see it is that rationality is not the context in which we must seek truth, or, indeed, the context of reality itself, but rather just a tool we use to seek truth. If we look at it this way, we can see that rationality no longer is the boundary or limit or definer of this process of discovery, but rather just one tool we can use along the way. It opens up a panorama that we never even knew was there only because we had assumed that rationality is the panorama, is the context. But that’s just an assumption that hasn’t been properly questioned. It’s interesting how questioning something that we hadn’t thought to question can change so much. [Note: This idea about rationality in the latter part of this paragraph was thought of while reading Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.]
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From my personal notes, 11/15/99.
