Reality Has a Taste

This text explores the distinction between illusion (maya) and reality through the metaphor of "taste," representing a direct internal perception. Far from rejecting material existence, the author invites a simple discernment, born from the silence of the mind, to recognize the spiritual flavor and bliss of Realization within our daily lives.

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Reality Has a Taste

Between Illusion and Truth

Summary : This text explores the distinction between illusion (maya) and reality through the metaphor of "taste," representing a direct internal perception. Far from rejecting material existence, the author invites a simple discernment, born from the silence of the mind, to recognize the spiritual flavor and bliss of Realization within our daily lives.

Text

It is traditional in India to speak of illusion and reality. For many, maya refers to everything that is born and dies. I don't entirely share this way of seeing things. Something can be impermanent and yet true for as long as it lasts. The existence we live today, in this incarnation, is not an illusion in itself.

Maya is illusion. And illusion is not in things, but in blindness. It is the act of being mistaken, of taking one thing for what it is not—as they say, mistaking a bladder for a lantern. We look at the world through our sensitivity, our ideas, our a priori, our emotions, sometimes our resentments, and this gaze distorts what is. Illusion is there, in that distortion.

Simple Discernment

With time and practice, it becomes possible to distinguish illusion from reality more clearly. Not as a certainty that one brandishes, but as a direct recognition. It is a very simple thing, almost childlike: like when you taste sugar and salt; you know how to tell the difference without the slightest doubt. There is no need to reflect for long; the taste is enough. Fundamental truth does not have the same flavor as illusion. It has a density, a simplicity, a quiet evidence that is unmistakable.

The Silence of the Mind

In deep meditation, in what some call dhyana, or even samadhi, the mind can fall silent. One then enters a form of emptiness. But this emptiness is not a lack, nor an absence. It is empty of thoughts, perhaps, but full of a presence that is difficult to name. Some speak of the Tao, others of God. The word doesn't matter. What counts is this particular quality, both simple and dense.

This emptiness is nothing like a depression. It possesses a consistency, a steadiness. When one is established in it, nothing truly comes to disturb it. One could say there is a form of gentle pressure there, like in certain laboratories where nothing from the outside can penetrate. In this depth, there is a background tone, a bliss. Not an emotion that comes and goes, but something more stable, more silent.

The Taste of Bliss

It is a bit like a background noise that we don't always hear because it is covered by the agitation of the mind. But when this agitation calms down, it becomes perceptible again. This bliss has a tangible quality: a sweetness, a light, almost a fragrance. One could say, without forcing the words, that it has a taste.

When this quality is present, existence itself changes flavor. Things remain what they are, but they are perceived differently, more directly, more simply. There is a lightness, a peace, a form of evidence that does not depend on circumstances. And when this quality is not recognized, the experience becomes more confused, more fragmented, as if veiled—not false in itself, but less clear.

Existence as a Space for Realization

Our existence is therefore not an illusion to be rejected. It is a place of experience, sometimes lucid, sometimes confused, the space-time where it is possible to journey toward realization. There are times when we live as if in a dream, absorbed in our thoughts, and there are also times when something brightens, like a discreet awakening. The difference is subtle, but it is real.

With time, we discover that this depth does not depend on external circumstances. The body changes, the mind evolves, emotions pass. We age, we transform, but something remains: our consciousness, which does not age. This is not an idea or a belief, but a dimension of experience which, once recognized, does not truly disappear, even when it seems to fade.

Returning to Presence

It is then enough to return. Not by going somewhere, but by simply holding oneself in this presence, as one returns to a familiar room whose door had been forgotten. And in this presence, there is that same quality, unchanged, that same sweetness, that same evidence. A kind of taste—always the same—which depends neither on time nor on circumstances.

Glossary

Maya: A term referring to illusion, not as the unreality of the physical world, but as the blindness or distortion of reality caused by our mental and emotional projections.

Dhyana: A state of deep meditation characterized by an uninterrupted flow of consciousness and the silencing of the mind.

Samadhi: A state of complete absorption and unity of consciousness, where the duality between the observer and the object fades into a full and stable presence.

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