Are we suffering from delusions? Was Our Albert Right?

Question

'A human being is part of the whole called by us 'universe' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.

This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty'

Albert Einstein (no date)

So are we suffering from delusions? Was Our Albert Right?

Answer 1

We are not suffering from delusions...he just wants us to broaden our perspective and realize that there is a whole wonderful world out there and get over ourselves and notice it whats around us!!.

Answer 2

Many of our delusions stem from the fact

that we have been deluded

by those whose power comes

from us being delusional.

Answer 3

Yep. Here is my favourite quote Bella I reckon Macy explains it better ;)

'With the ecological self or true self arising and breaking out of the prison self of separate ego, moral exhortation becomes more and more irrelevant, particularly under non-self and Deep Ecology.

Thus Dhamma or nature helps us to overcome our alienation from the world and its living creatures and changes the way we experience selfhood through an ever-widening process of identification with other living beings and forms of creation.

In this process, the individual self is not simply trying to protect something in nature. Rather, the experience of self is extended to what it is trying to protect through the power of caring based on deep concern and identity. (Joanna Macy 1990)

Answer 4

"i feel this wave that is carrying me

and I'm unable to stop

i stand outside of my body

but it continues to walk

love me and touch me

your body my feast

torn between two sides of my nature

half god and half beast"

We truly do not know what we are, or what consciousness is, how it evolved or how it works.  Physics, biology and chemistry scratch the surfaces, and paint pictures, make patterns which mimic and describe a little of the reality we experience.  Parallels can be drawn into mysticism, especially Eastern mysticism, and many are doing so.

In many ways the realm of idea is a practical reality of magic, if we are freewilled, our ideas shape our reality, literally, and represent a nexus between the spiritual world of awareness and the physical world which that awareness experiences.  A literal divinity able and involved in acts of creation, and in a wider sense, co-creation of the experienced world.

And one can adopt the viewpoint that all matter is at some level conscious and aware.

Perhaps that is the truth of it.

Answer 5

Oh sure.  Do you think enough of us realize it?  Do all of us realize it on some level?  Is it enough to realize it and not become a devout monk, or is this approach as good as failure?  Do the animals feel that they are part of their surroundings, no dividing line between self and else?  Do they feel alone or have no feelings about it?  Did we gain something with our “cerebral” intelligence?  Or did we lose something?  Am I part of an infinitely complicated, albeit mechanistic universe?  When I feel the presence of God, when I look at the vast cosmos and feel connected to everything, am I transcending the material world?   Is this real; or is this part of the illusion?

Answer 6

Your Albert?  I think only you suffer from delusions.  

My favorite Einstein quote is:

..."put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute" ...

He was very insightful and poetic.

Answer 7

Dear Uncle Albert... He was SO far ahead of His Time, we STILL haven't reached it- yet!!! Of COURSE He was Right... If we can Delude Ourselves into voting for someone like Bush TWICE- before we FINALLY "get the message", it only goes to show how SMALL the little "boxes" we live in- still ARE... And how FAR we have Yet to go...  :(