Fantasy versus Reality

Love and Imagination are the Breath of Creation.
(Quote from Spiritual Networks)

"Reality can connect you with God, fantasy can send you on a wild goose's chase." This was my response to a question someone asked in the Spiritual Networks community on the "Fantasy versus Reality" theme. Actually, it took me even a little bit of editing to get to this version. Instinctively, I wrote that reality is of God, while fantasy is of the ego. But then it occurred to me that our so called reality too can be tainted by the human touch. Sometimes one really has to look hard to find God in some of the man-created mess.

The expression "fantasy" is a problematic one for the reason that it already has the notion of being artificial embedded in it. What if we took "imagination, anticipation, entrepreneurial spirit, creative powers" instead, we would think very differently, wouldn't we? In conclusion, we shouldn't look down on a world that is created by the mind. Isn't it also true that reality is sometimes so brutal that only with the help of our imagined world we can keep going? I once read the story of a Prisoner of War, who more likely than not would have died given the conditions he found himself in over many years. He found a mental crutch though and played every day a round of 18 hole golf on his favorite golf course. Stroke by stroke, round by round, manifesting the imagined reality in his head. It is said that when he finally returned to America, despite his weakened body, he played the best round of golf ever, in honor of the course and the game that saved his life. 

God gave us a big heart and a beautiful mind to be Her co-creator. Let's celebrate both of our God-given institutions. We are God's Co-Creator with the mission to bring the utopia "Heaven on earth" a little closer to reality.