World is Brahman

Sri Ramana Maharshi

Q:  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. 

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.

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.