...And in the words of Nisargadattta; "Nothing is Everything".
Beautiful. Both of you. These are the conversations I love.
I have found this "idea" of Reality our minds love to play with can be best described as; "Reality- when every point in the Universe agrees to what happens next in the experience."
Another way to comprehend "Reality" is to ask; "Did a part of the Universe experience it?" and then to ask, "Is there a memory of it?"
Since the dream is a creation, it is real. It has been experienced. It does not, however, exist or sustain in continuum. It will eventually disappear as if it never existed.
A common teaching I have found in literally all spiritual philosophies including Buddhism and Hindu is the observation; "All that exists is in constant transformation." The Illusion concept should not to be confused with the idea of 'was it real or was it not real'. It appears to regard the context that nothing in the Universe sustains eternally. In time, whatever it is, will eventually not exist. It will transform. Therefore all is an illusion. Only the Observer sustains.
A troubling association I commonly hear is the notion that, "If it is an illusion, then it must have no meaning or importance." Why does this make my buttocks clench. (?)
If it is imagined into the dream,.. then it is important. But only for the moment it exists, and only within the context it was dreamed.
Well, according to ACIM the dream movie is projected through one of 2 filters. These filters (which are also part of the illusion) give the dream a totally different meaning (=importance).
One is the Ego-filter and it gives the dream the meaning of specialness, time, cause and effect (guilt), attack and defense etc. This filter is very meaning-full.
The other filter is the filter of the Holy Spirit ("the right mind" or Jesus or whatever symbol of Truth).
This filter is the remembrance of Oneness and reverses all meaning and importance of the Ego-filter. Through this filter - in comparison to the other - everything has indeed to become meaningless for a while, before it gets the new meaning of Oneness.
This is just a very quick overview on how ACIM sees this and after studying nearly all the big philosophies and spiritual teachings from around the world, this was really a game changer for me.
About the topic of what is "real" and what is not, I can only tell you, that I have stopped asking me this question, because in my experience it doesn't lead anywhere but to philosophical mind-fucking.
For me, if you can see it, hear it, taste it, feel it or sense it, it's an illusion and has no reality on it's own. It's a symbol of the egos thought system and here to be forgiven (which is the courses version of "seeing the REALity behind it") .
Thank you for your comment! I really appreciate to take this topic deeper with you guys! 🙏