I define real as the quantam state that we are able to observe at any given moment. It is as real as you are ever going to get. According to your definition, nothing at all is real and everything is equally valid. I suppose philosophically there is no way to prove an absolute reality, but that is a juvenile excercise that every PHIL 101 student thinks is some big epiphany. I am not here to entertain that rather pointless philosophical notion.
I define real as those things which can be measured and verified experimentally. Theories are built around sound evidence. You have to have some reference point to gauge what is real compared to what is not. For example, psychic abilities have never been shown to exist nor has there ever been a mechanism that could explain their existence. Thus, psychics are total bullshit. Compare that to things like the speed of light, or the existence of photons, and you will see the difference between "real" and not.
I am sure your experiences were real to you, care to share what they were? I sincerely doubt they violated any of the natural laws.
I would hesitate to call everything around you an illusion. How is it an illusion if energy from an environment interacts with a steady state system of cells and produces a holographic representation of the surroundings. I don't consider that an illusion. For our immediate surroundings and universe, the only one we are capable of knowing, things are very real. There may be seperate universes, more dimensions, etc... but it is more productive to focus on those things that actually have an effect on your life.
I believe you have been entranced by mechanistic science, "I define real as those things which can be measured and verified experimentally" how about all those new ideas outside the old scientific paradigm that were eventually considered "valid" but previous to proof were merely speculative... would you call those people insane because they didn't have your definition of proof? And no map or concept is inherently real... the map is not the territory.
It was the delusion involving the combination of these three senses of avidya or
marigpa that Nagarjuna, Aryadeva and subsequent Madhyamika interpreters of the Sutras
of the Second Promulgation referred to as the illusion of self-existence of entities. As we take our thoughts to perfectly correspond to an objective
reality and/or we confuse them with the sense data they interpret, we come to experience a
plethora of phenomena as though they were self-existent, as though they inherently
possessed such and such qualities, etc. However, this is a gross delusion, for phenomena in
general, whether of the type we call “mental” or of the type that we designate as “material,”
whether subjects or objects,33 lack the self-existence that individuals possessed by the
delusion called avidya or marigpa perceive them as having, and no map in terms of
thoughts can correspond exactly to the territory of the given, for nothing that can be
asserted concerning any region of reality or entity whatsoever can exactly correspond to it
or exhaust it. Even space and time lack the objective existence we experience them as
having. All of this is what the Madhyamikas had in mind when they used the term
emptiness or voidness (Skt. shunyata; Tib. tongpanyib; Chin. k’ung; Jap. kuc) to refer to the
lack of self-existence of entities (Skt. swabhava shunyata; Tib. rangzhinggyi tongpanyid,
which Tsongkhapa preferred to call rangzhingyi madrubpae), giving rise to what Tibetans
refer to as the Rangtongpaf subschools of Madhyamaka philosophy.34
Avidya or marigpa in the second of the three senses the Dzogchen
LOL...
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
