Maharshi - creation - 4

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Question: "Brahman is real. The world is illusion" is the stock phrase

of Sri Sankaracharya. Yet others say, "The world is reality."

Which is true?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi:

Both statements are true. They refer to different stags of development

and are spoken from different points of view. The aspirant starts with the

definition, that which is real exists always. Then he eliminates the world

as unreal because it is changing. The seeker ultimately reaches the Self

and there finds unity as the prevailing note. Then, that which was originally

rejected as being unreal is found to be a part of the unity. Being absorbed

in the reality, the world also is real. There is only being in Self-realisation,

and nothing but being.

 

Question: Sri Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi) often says that Maya (illusion) and reality are the same. How can that be?

Sri Ramana Maharshi: Sankara was criticised for his views on Maya without being understood. He said that

Brahman is real,

The universe is unreal, and

The universe is Brahman.

He did not stop at the second, because the third explains the other two. It signifies that the universe is real if perceived as the Self, and unreal if perceived apart from the Self. Hence Maya and reality are one and the same.

Question:

So the world is not really illusory?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi:

At the level of the spiritual seeker you have got to say that the world

is an illusion. There is no other way. When a man forgets that he is

a Brahman, who is real, permanent and omnipresent, and deludes

himself into thinking that he is a body in the universe which is filled

with bodies that are transitory, and labours under that delusion, you

have got to remind him that the world is unreal and a delusion. Why?

Because his vision which has forgotten its own Self is dwelling in the

external, material universe. It will not turn inwards into introspection

unless you impress on him that all this external material universe is

unreal. When once he realises his own Self he will know that there is

nothing other than his own Self and he will come to look upon the whole

universe as Brahman. There is no universe without the Self. So long as

a man does not see the Self which is the origin of all, but looks only at

the external world as real and permanent, you have to tell him that all

this external universe is an illusion. You cannot help it. Take a paper.

We see only the script, and nobody notices the paper on which the script

is written. The paper is there whether the script on it is there or not.

To those who look upon the script as real, you have to say that it is unreal,

an illusion, since it rests upon the paper. The wise man looks upon both

the paper and script as one. So also with Brahman and the universe.

 

 

Question: So the world is real when it is experienced as the Self

and unreal when it is seen as separate names and forms?

 

Sri Ramana Maharshi:

Just as fire is obscured by smoke, the shining light of consciousness

is obscured by the assemblage of names and forms, the world. When

by compassionate divine grace the mind becomes clear, the nature of

the world will be known to be not the illusory forms but only the reality.

 

Only those people whose minds are devoid of the evil power of Maya,

having given up the knowledge of the world and being unattached to it,

and having thereby attained the knowledge of the self-shining Supreme

Reality, can correctly know the meaning of the statement "The world is

real." If ones outlook has been transformed to the nature of real knowledge,

the world of the five elements beginning with space (akasha) will be real,

being the Supreme Reality, which is the nature of knowledge.

The original state of this empty world, which is bewildering and crowded

with many names and forms, is bliss, which is one, just as the egg-yolk

of a multi-coloured peacock is only one. Know this truth by abiding in the

state of Self.

 

Be As You Are, David Godman