Virtual Reality (VR) helps explain Oneness of all Life
VR — Virtual reality. Put on those VR headsets and you enter a different world altogether, with different characters, different landscape, etc. and that’s why experiencing a story on VR is called StoryLiving , unlike, ‘storytelling’ when we experience it by hearing or watching it on movie screens.
A VR experience is like living a character’s life in the story. All things that character goes through , you go through now. You interact with the story, you make decisions, you are afraid, you are happy, etc etc. Therefore we can call it a ‘mini-life experience’.
So, if its possible to live a mini-life within a life then could it mean that our own life is a mini part of a mega life ?
Maybe we are actually a Mega-life, who has worn a VR headset for sometime, (which is near about 100 years in this VR story that you are living in, but time is relative, and that’s a concept for another time maybe). So, maybe after your time here , which means death, you just take off your VR !
Now, the Mega-life that you are , can decide to experience another story on a VR. So, now you go on to live a next mini-life. And this is the very concept of “Reincarnation or Rebirth” in philosophy.
We come out of a VR experience and if we are still hungry for more, we take another VR story and go into it. So, we take rebirths until, we leave all the desire for another VR experience. And this is nothing but the “concept of non-attachment” as a spiritual path to freedom from the birth & death cycle and all its associated sufferings.
Now, notice, the next VR story you choose need not necessarily be that of a human. Maybe something from your previous VR experience made you to choose a next VR movie of a Dog. And so you put on a VR in which you go through the story through the lenses of a Dog. Woooaaah Man ! , this is the exact concept that your reincarnation in next life can be in a different form, based on your past Karma.
Now, what if your Mega-life is itself a VR experience of a mega-mega-life ? You see where I’m going with this.. If we keep extending this logic, we see that there shall exist an “Infinite life” as the mother of all these subsequent shorter life’s (of which VR is the latest & shortest version) . That infinite existence is what we call by different names as The One / God / Absolute / Infinite Consciousness, etc.
Instead of complicating it with the following long order of life’s i.e :
VR experience < Life < Mega Life < Mega-mega-Life < ………. < God
For simplicity, lets just consider Mega life as God. Lets keep God to just one layer above us to simplify things. i.e
VR experience < Life < God
So , we are the mini-life experiences of the infinite life called God. In short, Each of our lives is a unique VR story for God.
We are god’s pretending to be a character in a VR story. We are divine beings who are so immersed in varied unique experiences that we have forgotten our real nature. Here I must quote a famous Philosopher :
Man looks on all these changes; he himself is never impure; but by reflection, by implication, he seems to be impure. It is like the appearance of a crystal when a red or a blue flower is brought before it: the colour is reflected on it, but the crystal itself is pure. We shall take it for granted that there are many selves, and each self is pure and perfect; various kinds of gross and fine matter superimpose themselves on the self and make it multicoloured. Why does nature do all this? Nature is undergoing all these changes for the development of the soul; all this creation is for the benefit of the soul, so that it may be free. This immense book which we call the universe is stretched out before man so that he may read; and he discovers eventually that he is an omniscient and omnipotent being.
But there’s a problem, we can experience only one VR story at a time, isn’t it ? We can move to next VR in a sequence only. We cannot watch and comprehend two VR’s parallely.. Then the question arises, how can God be seeing through different VR’s at once ? (There are so many people, so may animals, so many lives around us, right ? ) So, Does this mean there are many such Gods ?
The answer to this in Advaita philosophy is “ILLUSION” and hey, this explanation fits perfectly into our analogy of VR’s.
Consider this, When we enter a VR story , we know that nothing in it is real, right ? For example, If we choose to be a Shark in a VR story, we know that everything in it graphics or optical illusion. So similarly, the explanation is that, there is only one God, or The One or the omniscient one, which exists and experiences different VR stories one at a time.
Does that mean our life, our consciousness, which is a VR experience of God, is the only truth that exists ?
In our VR story analogy — we can talk to different characters in our VR experience but they are all programmed ! And the programming seems so real with A.I chat bots and what not but none is real. Similarly, we can explain that we can see , hear, talk to and feel other humans & other species in our life but everything is an illusion or “maya”.
Therefore, The One is seeing through different lenses of its own creation. And why ? Why does the God do all this ? Now, we have finally reached the eternal philosophical question of all mankind: Why did God create this universe, world, life (VR) ? What is its purpose ?
The answer lies in the question that we should ask ourselves — Why did we, the human species create VR , AI , Graphics etc all ?
We don’t have a better answer than “entertainment”, do we ? Or would you say development ? Of what ? of ways to entertain ourselves ? Then maybe you are right. “Its all Play”!!! And hence we arrive at conclusion of Advaita philosophy that “Its all God’s play”.
How wonderful ! And there is a wonderful explanation for this : Having a purpose means, to do something in order to get something. For example, Say purpose is “To cross the river”, And what do we do — “build a bridge” or “A boat”, etc. Hence purpose exists for someone who cannot get something without doing something, But God, the creator, doesn’t need a purpose. By attaching a purpose, we are limiting the creator , which is absurd. So, “Its all Gods play”, there’s just no purpose in the creation of universe.
Actually, “It’s all your play”, you are divine, you are the infinite consciousness and its just a matter of time until you realize that. This is beautifully summed up in the quote :
The whole of nature is that book which the soul is reading. Each life, as it were, is one page of that book; and that read, it is turned over, and so on and on, until the whole of the book is finished, and that soul becomes perfect, having got all the experiences of nature.
So, lets see what all was explained using VR experience as an analogy :
1) Concept of Rebirth
2) Non-attachment as spiritual path
3) Karma & life forms
4) God as Infinite consciousness
5) You are Divine, god himself
6) Non-duality
7) Everything is Maya
8) Its all Play
And that my friend, sums up Advaita philosophy of Hinduism perfectly, atleast to my mind. Thanks for reading . Here are two videos that I watched, which inspired me to write this article :
