Throughout the years, Star Trek has revealed many life lessons to me, and one of the most important ones is a reminder of how illusions work.
It happened in the first Star Trek episode, The Menagerie, which aired in November of 1966. In an attempt to rescue Captain Pike from the Talosians, who were masters of illusions, the crew used heavy phaser fire to blast an entrance through to the prison.
Repeated attempts to blast open the entrance appeared to the crew to be unsuccessful, because the Talosians’ illusion hid the reality from them that they had succeeded on the first try. Captain Pike eventually realizes that the phasers have worked, and forces the Talosians to drop the illusion to reveal the truth that the entrance was clear.
Holding that idea in mind, let’s call debt and the concept of lack in all its forms, a prison from which we wish to escape.
We can be in debt in many forms, because debt is more than just owing money. However, all debt stems from a false premise, and until we face and replace that premise, we can never be free from the illusion of lack and debt.
The false premise is an expectancy that good comes directly from the object that we see; whether it is a person, place, or thing. We have been taught the premise that the material world owes us a living, or good things, or health, or love, or our completeness, and that false premise puts us into debt, because we have put matter into our debt.
How does this work with the Star Trek metaphor?
As we blast away at perceived problems, including debt and lack, with our “phasers” of Truth, it sometimes appears as if nothing has changed, so we think that our Truth phaser hasn’t worked, but it always does.
Shifting our perceptions always changes the object that we perceive because what appears as the material world is the objectification of our current highest awareness of every idea, person, place, or thing.
Choosing a perception of infinite good and blasting away at what appears to be a problem with that awareness does indeed dissolve the illusion.
If we don’t see a change, it is not the problem itself that has remained, but our habit of believing the illusion. This means we waste immeasurable amounts of time, energy, and worry on something that has already been dissolved, instead of demanding, and expecting, to experience Truth now.
In the Bible story of Elisha and his servant, the servant was afraid of the huge army facing them and worried that they did not have the means to fight the enemy. Elisha wasn’t worried, because he knew that what was appearing as the enemy was powerless before Truth.
Responding to his servants fear, “…he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.” (Bible 11 Kings [6:16])
Just like Elisha, we can stop focusing on the problem, and return to Truth and stay there. What we perceive to be reality magnifies. We can choose to magnify Truth, not illusion. It’s that simple. No matter how big, how loud, how terrifying the enemy, it is always an illusion based on a false premise.
Demanding that the material world owes us a living, or love, or happiness, we fall into the trap of every kind of debt because we have followed the siren call of the material.
Instead of seeing the material world as if it were the truth, let’s look again. Let’s blast away the illusion.
Let’s notice that everything that is present in our life is in reality the presence of intelligent Love. Let’s follow that clear guidance and direction of this promise: “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (Bible John [8:32])
BECA LEWIS coaches, teaches, writes blogs and books, plays with art, and is addicted to reading. She lives in Ohio with her husband and has kids and grandkids scattered across the country.
