Ramana Maharshi about The World – Real Or Illusion?

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D.: Are there degrees of illusion?B.: Illusion itself is illusory. It must be seen by somebody outside it, but how can such a seer be subject to it? So, how can he speak of degrees of it?You see various scenes passing on a cinema screen: fire seems to burn buildings to ashes; water seems to wreck ships; but the screen on which the pictures are projected remains unburnt and dry. Why? Because the pictures are unreal and the screen real.

Similarly, reflections pass through a mirror but it is not affected at all by their number or quality. In the same way, the world is a phenomenon upon the substratum of the single Reality which is not affected by it in any way. Reality is only One.

Talk of illusion is due only to the point of view. Change your viewpoint to that of Knowledge and you will perceive the Universe to be only Brahman. Being now immersed in the world,you see it as a real world; get beyond it and it will disappear and Reality alone will remain.

As the last excerpt shows, the postulate of one universal Reality calls for the conception of a process either of illusion or creation to explain the apparent reality of the world. The world is perceived as an apparent objective reality when the mind is externalised, thereby abandoning its identity with the Self. When the world is thus perceived the true nature of the Self is not revealed; conversely, when the Self is realised the world ceases to appear as an objective reality.

That is illusion which makes one take what is ever present and all pervasive, full to perfection and self-luminous and is indeed the Self and the core of one’s Being, for non-existent and unreal. Conversely, that is illusion which makes one take for real and self-existent what is non-existent and unreal, namely the trilogy of world, ego and God.

The world is indeed real, but not as an independent, selfsubsistent reality, just as a man you see in a dream is real as a dream-figure but not as a man.To those who have not realised the Self as well as to those who have, the world is real. But to the former, Truth is adapted to the form of the world whereas to the latter Truth shines as the formless Perfection and the Substratum of the world. This is the only difference between them.

As I recalled Bhagavan saying sometimes that unreal (mithya, imaginary) and real (satyam) mean the same, but did not quite understand, I asked him about it. He said, ‘Yes, I do sometimes say that. What do you mean by real? What is it that you call real?’

I answered: “According to Vedanta, only that which is permanent and unchanging can be called real. That is the meaning of Reality.”Then Bhagavan said: “The names and forms which constitute the world continually change and perish and are therefore called unreal. It is unreal (imaginary) to limit the Self to these names and forms and real to regard all as the Self. The non-dualist says that the world is unreal, but he also says, ‘All this is Brahman’. So it is clear that what he condemns is, regarding the world as objectively real in itself, not regarding it as Brahman. He who sees the Self sees the Self alone in the world also. It is immaterial to the Enlightened whether the world appears or not. In either case, his attention is turned to the Self.It is like the letters and the paper on which they are printed.You are so engrossed in the letters that you forget about the paper, but the Enlightened sees the paper as the substratum whether the letters appear on it or not.

This is still more succinctly stated as follows:The Vedantins do not say that the world is unreal. That is a misunderstanding. If they did, what would be the meaning of the Vedantic text: ‘All this is Brahman’? They only mean that the world is unreal as world but real as Self. If you regard the world as non-self, it is not real. Everything, whether you call it illusion (Maya) or Divine Play (Lila) or Energy (Shakti) must be within the Self and not apart from it.

Source: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi in His Own Words Edited By ARTHUR OSBORNE

-- Om namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

Prasanth Jalasutram