What if you woke up tomorrow and discovered that everything in your life is a lie? That everything you've been taught, everything you believe in, every experience you've ever had was simply not true, an illusion, a world that has been pulled over your eyes like a pair of blinders hiding all that is true from you... a grand illusion that has made you slave to a false reality which doesn't have a shred of truth in it and whose main purpose is to keep you from ever recognizing that none of this is real.

What would you do?

Would you rage against the creator of this illusion? Would you fall into hopelessness and despair? Would you try and erase this new knowledge and go back to living the lie? Would you rebel and try to create a new illusion that you liked better? Would you go into confusion and just stare off into space?

Or would you find a deep place inside yourself that burned to know the truth and yearned to find what was outside of the illusion? Would you have the courage to scrap every bit of knowledge you possess, assume you know nothing, and start anew? Could you open to something totally new knowing that you would have to give up every bit of identification with the illusion? Could you give up your sense of self, your personal identity, your worldly possessions, your beliefs about your society, your culture, your morals, your sense of what is right and wrong? Could you surrender everything to the mystery of your existence and begin the process of finding out what this life is really about?

Or would fear overwhelm you? Would you decide you were happy with the false sense of security the illusion was providing you?

What would you do?

This is the question that drives those on the spiritual path to true awakening. It is the unceasing questioning of the illusion that gives us the will to continue. The deep understanding that everything we know is a false reflection of the truth is the fire that keeps us on the path toward truly being the mystery that stands at the core of our being. Without commitment to questioning what is real, the illusion creeps back in, pacifying us with its boring substitutes of drama, stimulation, and knowledge. These substitutes hook our attention and keep us from being the experience of the great mystery that is our birthright.

It is the questioning that keeps us on the narrow path toward the truth. Without it we become lost and confused by the myriad of false comforts offered by the illusion. I invite you to ask this question, and to peel back the blinders of illusion to live a life of joyful presence, from the center of your being.