Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi Complete ... - BrahminVoice.org

Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi
Talk 315.
One of the attendants asked: Sri Bhagavan has said: ‘Reality and myth
are both the same’. How is it so?
M.: The tantriks and others of the kind condemn Sri Sankara’s philosophy
as maya vada without understanding him aright. What does he say?
He says: (1) Brahman is real; (2) the universe is a myth; (3) Brahman
is the universe. He does not stop at the second statement but continues
to supplement it with the third. What does it signify? The Universe
is conceived to be apart from Brahman and that perception is wrong.
The antagonists point to his illustration of rajju sarpa (rope snake).
This is unconditioned superimposition. After the truth of the rope is
known, the illusion of snake is removed once for all.
But they should take the conditioned superimposition also into
consideration, e.g., marumarichika or mrigatrishna (water of mirage).
The mirage does not disappear even after knowing it to be a mirage.
The vision is there but the man does not run to it for water. Sri
Sankara must be understood in the light of both the illustrations.
The world is a myth. Even after knowing it, it continues to appear.
It must be known to be Brahman and not apart.
If the world appears, yet to whom does it appear, he asks. What is
your reply? You must say the Self. If not, will the world appear in
the absence of the cognising Self? Therefore the Self is the reality.
That is his conclusion. The phenomena are real as the Self and are
myths apart from the Self.
Now, what do the tantriks, etc., say? They say that the phenomena
are real because they are part of the Reality in which they appear.
Are not these two statements the same? That is what I meant by
reality and falsehood being one and the same.
The antagonists continue: With the conditioned as well as the
unconditioned illusions considered, the phenomenon of water in
mirage is purely illusory because that water cannot be used for any
purpose. Whereas the phenomenon of the world is different, for it is
purposeful. How then does the latter stand on a par with the former?
A phenomenon cannot be a reality simply because it serves a
purpose or purposes. Take a dream for example. The dream
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