ERROR OF REALITY

Atman (inner spirit, or Self) is transcendental, Self-caused, Self-effulgent, Self-luminescent, uncaused, unborn, undependent on external sources, unborn, undying, unchanging, and ultimately one with Brahman, or the Cosmic Self, or the Ultimate Reality. Atman is self-existent and the source of its own awareness; no outside force can create it. It is the Ultimate Reality and the essence of consciousness. It is beyond the perceptions of mind and senses. If reality is one, then everything we perceive in the temporal dimensions can be wrong or non-existent. It is because there is no duality, as existence is eternal, imperishable, One and Absolute only. Rest is an illusion, a reflection of the world's transience, seen through our senses. It is better, as Yoga-Vasistha (3.114.42) teaches, to distrust the delusions of this world and disbelieve the blueness of the sky than to labour under the errors of their reality.

bhramasya jāgatasyāsya jātasyākāśavarṇavat |

apunaḥsmaraṇaṃ manye sādho vismaraṇaṃ varam ||  Yoga-Vasistha(3.114.42) ||

It claims that everything seems real in the objective dimensions while we are ignorant. The dawn of Self-knowledge illumines the reality by melting down the snow of ignorance that covers the subjective dimension. Sage Vasistha, (Yoga-Vasistha, 3.114.2), in his discourses with Sri Rama, says that as the particles of snow melt away at the sight of the sun, so is this ignorance dispelled in a moment by a glance of the Brahman, or Cosmic Self.

1. Outline

The phenomenal world is not a final, absolute reality but is full of errors. Our mind reflects the errors like a mirage through its sense agents, creating an illusionary reflection. The mind's tendency, if not controlled towards self-realisation, has a tendency to move out to savour the sense objects through the insatiable desire raised by sensual gratifications. The Yoga-Vasistha (3.114.10) posits that stiffness of our desires tends to bind the mind fast in its worldly chains, as the advance of night serves to increase the fear of goblins in children.It is rather a temporary, mental construct and has a propensity to satiate the mind's driven sensual trappings. It's not that the world is completely unreal, but rather that our experience with it is limited, incomplete, and under a veil of ignorance. We need to expand our perception beyond the physical senses to delve into a deeper, insightful understanding of reality beyond the illusionary appearances of the sense-dimensional reality. The error of Reality, as described in Yoga-Vasistha (3.114.42), exists because the world we perceive is merely a manifestation of Māyā, the illusionary power of the Cosmic Self. Māyā, according to sage philosopher Swami Krishnananda, is the cosmic aspect of the power that hides Reality's essence. He says that it is the limiting adjunct of Ishwara or the highest manifestation of Brahmān, the Absolute Existence, or the Supreme Being. The basic meaning of the word Māyā indicates its non-existence. However, we cannot explain the existence of a non-existent appearance. Even appearance is not non-existent, because a non-existent entity never exists, whereas an appearance is something that does. Otherwise, one could not discuss or speculate on appearances. Māyā is not non-existent only because it appears to us, but it is also non-enduring. This mystery defies all logic and reason, and no metaphysics can explain its nature. The best philosophers began to shelter themselves behind the belief that the human intellect is not all-knowing and hence cannot answer trans-empirical problems. Our individual perception of the world is subjective and influenced by our own minds, emotions, and experiences. Reality is not simply what we see, hear, and feel, but rather a deeper, more ultimate Reality, of one Absolute Existence only, beyond the comprehension of our limited mind and senses. The idea of the world as an illusion is not necessarily a denial of its existence but rather a recognition that our experience of it is not the whole story. It's a process of understanding how our minds create and shape our perceptions of reality.

2. Scriptures

The scriptures are perspicacious in their assertion that Brahman is the Cosmic Self— eternal and imperishable intelligence. It is, according to the Taittiriya Upanishad (2.1), satyaṃ jñānamanantaṃ brahma (Real-Consciousness-Infinite). The Universal Spirit, described in Yoga-Vasistha (3.114.14-3.114.17), is one and one alone, all-pervading, and an imperishable Unity; it is incomprehensible in thought and exists only in the form of Intellect. Existence is Absolute, Non-Relative, Ultimate Reality and Truth only. Whatever one may experience and visualise is only a manifestation of Maya, or the illusionary power of Brahman, or Cosmic Self only. Recognise that the apparent is unreal; the Ashtavakra Gita (1.18–20) avers, while the unmanifest is abiding. Through this initiation into truth, you will escape falling into unreality again. Just as a mirror exists everywhere, both within and apart from its reflected images, so the Brahman, or Cosmic Self, exists everywhere within and apart from this body. Just as one and the same all-pervading space exists within and without a jar, so the Supreme Self exists in the totality of things. The Yoga-Vasistha states directly that reality is an error or a distortion of the illusionary power of Maya. The scripture (Yoga Vasistha, 3.114.4) asserts that Avidya (ignorance) and Moha (delusion) emanate from the desire to cloud reality, and only a Siddha, or self-realised one, can overcome duality and illusion. The Siddha, through his power of self-knowledge, can discriminate between real and unreal, imperishable and perishable, knowledge and ignorance, joy and grief, pleasure and pain, attachment and detachment, subjective and objective, and other pairs of opposites. It (Yoga-Vasistha, 3.114.7) contends that our desires are the offspring of our ignorance, and the annihilation of these constitutes what we call our liberation because the man who is devoid of desires is reckoned the perfect and consummate Siddha. Such is the net of our wishes spread before us by our minds, proclaims Yoga-Vasistha (3.114.27), which represent unrealities as real and take delight in dwelling upon them, like children with their toys. The thought that 'I am neither flesh nor bones but something else than my body' releases one from his bondage, and one having such assurance in him is said to have weakened his Avidya or ignorance. Sage Vasistha (Yoga-Vasistha, 3.114.20-3.114.40) says that as one, after losing his eyesight, beholds but darkness only all about him, so the want of the objects of sight in the womb of vacuity gives the sky the appearance of a darksome scene. The firmament (Sunya), which is a vast vacuum, is open to a sister of ignorance (Avidya) with regard to its inward hollowness. Sage Vasistha teaches that, as one learns, the sky's apparent blackness is not a colour of its own, and the seeming darkness of ignorance is not real darkness. Another scripture, Brahma Jnanavali Mala (20) of Adi Shankaracharya, avouches that

brahma satyam jaganmithyA jIvo brahmaiva nAparahanena vedyam sacchAstram iti vedAntaDiNDimah

Brahman is real; the universe is mithya (neither real nor unreal). The jiva is Brahman itself, and they are not different. Understanding this concept as the correct Sastra is essential. This is proclaimed by Vedanta (Brahma Jnanavali Mala, 20). Brahman is the ultimate reality, the source of all existence, and the only truly real thing. It reinforces the idea that everything is ultimately one, and the individual self is part of Brahman's ultimate reality. This world, as we perceive it, is not ultimately real. It's like a dream, a temporary manifestation that exists within Brahman and ultimately dissolves back into it. This doesn't mean the world is completely unreal or nonexistent, but rather that it's not the final or highest reality.

3. Remarks:

The goal is to transcend the illusion of the world and realise the true nature of reality, often described as Brahman or the Self. Practices such as meditation and self-inquiry, which dissolve illusion and reveal the underlying truth, can achieve such realisation. Only the ignorant can mistakenly accept the earth, sun, and stars as realities, whereas the learnt, who perceive the Great Brahma in all his majesty and full glory, in all places and things, are immune to this error (Yoga-Vasistha 3.114.59-3.114.75). While the ignorant labour under the doubt of the two ideas, of a rope and a snake in the rope, the learnt are firm in their belief and sight of one true God in all things. O how wonderful it is that men have so utterly forgotten the true Brahma and have placed their reliance in ignorance, the sole cause of errors. Don't let ignorance cloud your mind, making it hard to overlook the world's mistakes. If the mind is not filled and led away by worldly desires, there is no fear of our falling into the dangers that the daydreams of our earthly affairs incessantly present before us. The Ashtavakra Gita (2.7) similarly affirms this. It teaches that from ignorance of oneself, the world appears, and by knowledge of oneself, it appears no longer. A snake emerges from ignorance of the rope, and it vanishes when one is aware of it. The more our ignorance lays hold of our minds, the more we feel the torments of hell and its punishments in us, as one dreams of nightmares in his sleep.

-Asutosh Satpathy