Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach.
Is reality merely an illusion that we have created for our own learning, growth, and enjoyment?
The story’s main characters are 2 barn-storming pilots in the American Midwest. Don was a mechanic from Indiana that had become known as a teacher/messiah before walking away by physically disappearing in the middle of a crowd saying that In the path of our happiness we shall find the learning we seek. The other barn-stormer, Richard, was seeking/searching.
“They came for the miracles” was a significant theme in this book’s story as well as for the lady whose healing ability had saved my own life. This book reinforced my experience of “When the student is ready the teacher will appear”.
While our reality is depected as an illusion, the underlying reality beneath it is shared nicely with drama and with the Messiah’s Handbook. The reader can open to any page on which the reader may find guidance or the answers to doubts and questions in his mind. It is not a magical book; we can do this with any sort of text when we choose.
Illusions used the tool of the “Messiah’s Handbook; Reminders for an Advanced Soul” to share principles/words of wisdom at appropriate times. Also to predict a terrible death coming and “You seek problems because you need the gifts”. (p. 71)
Don was dying of his need to share what he knew and from learning that people did not care to listen. They wanted the miracles, the psychic. If our happiness depends on what someone else does or thinks, we do have a problem.
Some are unhappy because they choose to be unhappy and that’s all right. They have the right to choose. p. 108 Illusions compared our illusions in life to being a movie and we each can choose to stay in, or to change, our movie. The truth of the comment that fictional characters are sometimes more real than those with bodies is striking.
The thought form of a vampire in the story illustrates the point of being free to chose. We can choose to be hurt or not. We have the right to choose.
Some thoughts from the Messiahs Handbook include:
You are never given a wish without the power to make it come true.
You may have to work for it however. p 120
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice.
WE KNOW ! Will we accept that we can? p. 162
Is this why I still reread this book?