Article March 5, 2012 Issue

Seeing through the mist

By Doug Brown

One morning I was sitting as usual by my favorite window at a fast-food restaurant having breakfast. A heavy mist obscured the view of the house across the road, and I saw what looked like a ghostly form standing by a tree. As the sun broke through the clouds, I was amused to see the “ghostly figure” disperse along with the mist, and the scene return intact.

Everyday experience is filled with such illusory events. The railroad tracks that merge, the mirage of heat waves off blacktop, and on special occasions, the reflection in a fun-house mirror to which the general response is “It looks so real, but I know it’s a trick.”

Spiritually speaking, this is the crux of the whole issue. Something looks so real and tangible, but I know it is merely a supposition. The evidence of the five senses takes us only so far—because this common view suffers from the limitations of its matrix, matter.