The World is an Illusion

By: Aldous Huxley

The world is an illusion, but it is an illusion that we must take seriously, because it is as real as it goes, and in those aspects of reality which we are capable of apprehending.

Our business is to wake up.

We have to find ways in which to detect the whole of reality in the one illusory part which our self-centered consciousness permits us to see.

We must not live thoughtlessly, taking our illusion for the complete reality, but at the same time we must not live too thoughtfully in the sense of trying to escape from the dream state.

We must continually be on our watch for ways in which we may enlarge our consciousness.

We must not attempt to live outside the world, which is given to us, but we must somehow learn how to transform it and transfigure it.

Too much 'wisdom' is as bad as too little wisdom, and there must be no magic tricks.

We must learn to come to reality without the enchanter's wand and his book of the words. One must find a way of being in this world while not being in it. A way of living in time without being completely swallowed up by time.

The above was excerpt from the last article written by Aldous Huxley before his death in November 1963. The article was called ‘Shakespeare and Religion’ and it was published in Show Magazine the following year.