Our world is based on dualities comprising items in time and space. In other words, our life happens by and around physical concepts and things. This material preference is prevailing and very carefully reflected in our mind as well.
All the important issues are formless. Joy, happiness, wisdom, knowledge, beauty, and love, to name a few. Plato introduced us to the ancient wisdom of forms or ideas. He spoke about pure ideal concepts that are perfect. For example, an ideal concept of horse is something that is never entirely captured in the physical horses. Still, we can realize the ideal concept of a horse by observing the variety of horses around us. How do we think? We create images. These conceptual items are not from the ideal world but consist of our experiences. We can reconstruct something that we already know. Our mind is used to creating physical forms. What happens when we try to squeeze a formless concept into a material existence?
It is the same as taking a photo—a snapshot of real life. A photo is never the real thing. It does not smell or taste or cannot be by any means compared to the real thing. Still, this is the way our mind works. It takes snapshots over and over again and tries to imitate the formless and eternal, perfect, concepts. We chase these ideas by using physical things and items as if they were the formless perfect concepts. Our mind transfers the ideal concepts into physical objects and does its best to give us the illusion of the real thing. And we are lured—all the way. But every time we have "consumed" these mind creations, we are not satisfied. We realize that they are not the entire truth. We long for the real thing—and off we go again.
The puzzle can be solved the same way as Plato's famous The Allegory of the Cave. One has to realize the real thing and break free from the chains. We have to set ourselves free from our mind and its creations. As long as we continue putting forms to something that cannot have a form, we are living in an imperfect world, which makes us crave the original concepts.
Formless items cannot be captured in time and space. They have to be experienced instantly. Over and over again. They do not bend to the physical existence. They are the real thing, forever and right now.
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