Here’s a potentially disturbing realization: The “you” you believe reads this sentence rests on an illusion so great that it qualifies as delusional. Understanding the delusion of identity can be unsettling, but such a realization, optimized by meditation, prayer, or psychedelics, is also liberating. It offers an understanding of the world that, ironically, both stabilizes your sense of “reality” and grants ideal ways to treat yourself and others.
The wisdom, delivered by ancient Eastern philosophers like Nāgārjuna1 and validated by contemporary physicists like Carlo Rovelli2, is simple:
All “things” exist only in relation to other “things.”
In other words, our frantic pursuit of the nature of objects is a dead end. They never exist in isolation, whether considering chairs, tables, galaxies, or consciousness. Sure, you can conjure up an image of a “thing.” However, even the appearance of the thing-in-isolation is delusional. Whatever that thing is, it’s affiliated with some other entity.
As a starting place, you see yourself as “sitting” or “standing” while reading right now. It certainly matches your subjective experience. You feel stable, in place. But, in truth, the Earth rotates around the Sun at 67,000 mph. At the same time, the Earth spins at the rate of 1,040 mph at the equator while gravity holds us in place. That desk in front of you looks utterly solid, yet it is mostly filled with space where atoms and electrons spin around. The electrons surrounding atoms’ tiny nuclei extend over distances tens of thousands of times greater than the dimensions of the nuclei.
The calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood, and much of the oxygen we breathe originated in earlier generations of stars. We owe our existence to carbon, as well as oxygen, calcium, and other “things.” These elements were created through nuclear processes and then dispersed into space through stellar winds or explosive events. Even more mind-blowing, what we experience as our own physical substance is actually an inheritance from cosmic processes spanning billions of years.