ILLUSIONS
The adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
By Richard Bach
Perspective- Use it or loose it. If you turned to this page you are forgetting that what is going on around you is not reality.
Think about that.
Remember where you came from, where you’re going, and why you created the mess you got yourself into in the first place.
You’re going to die a horrible death, remember. It’s all good training and you’ll enjoy it more if you keep the facts in mind.
Take your dying with some seriousness, however.
Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life forms- they’ll call you crazy.
Learning is finding out what you already know.
Doing is demonstrating that you know it.
Teaching is reminding others that they know it just as well as you.
You are all learners, does, and teachers.
Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.
Being true to anyone else or anything else is not only impossible, but is the mark of a fake messiah.
The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born? Where is your home? Where are you going? What are you doing? Think about these once in a while and watch your answers change.
You teach what you need most to learn.
Live never to be ashamed if anything you say is published around the world – even if what is published is not true.
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. The best way to avoid responsibilities is to say “I’ve got responsibilities”
You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being that is your real self. Don’t turn away from possible futures before you are certain that you don’t have anything to learn from them.
You’re always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.
There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need there gifts.
The bond that links your true family is not the one of blood, but of respect and joy in each others life.
Rarely do members of ones family grow up under the same roof.
Argue your limitations, and sure enough, they’re yours.
Imagine the universe and just and perfect,
Then be sure of one thing, the Is has imagined it quite a bit better than you have.
A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a direction and at such a speed,
It feels like an impulsion…this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reasons and the pattern behind all the clouds, and you will know, too, when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.
You may have to work for it, however.
The world is your exercise book, the pages on which you do your sums. It is not reality, although you can express reality there if you wish.
You are also free to write nonsense, or lies, or tear the pages.
The original sin is to limit the Is.
Don’t.
If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will learn that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.
Your consciousness is the measure of the honesty of the selfishness of yourself.
Listen to it carefully.
Every person, all the elements of your life are there because you have drawn them there.
What you choose to do with them is up to you.
The truth you speak has no past and no future.
It Is, and that’s all it needs to be.
Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you’re alive it isn’t.
In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom.
It is not always an easy sacrifice.
Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.
The mark of you ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy.
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
