"Is This World Real?"

 This question about the 'Reality of our Existence and the true nature Objective World' is raised often, and it ends without a conclusion. The problem here is that of the 'true nature'. Pancharatra says, "This world is illusory" in unmistakable terms. Whatever the sense organs grasp with the help of mind and intellect is 'what is grasped', and may or may not be real, true. It is subject to the capacity of the individual to understand what is grasped. A person of worldly interests sees the world in a different perspective as compared to the one who grasps it after spiritual attainment. There are seven levels of consciousness and all of us work at the basic level of muladhara, svadhishthana and manipura prajnya only, day in and day out. A person who reaches higher levels at anahata, vishuddhi, ajnya  prajnya will get a different perception and realizes the reality.

 Whatever appears to be real or true may not be real or the truth and there may be something else that covers the truth! The world we live and work, exist for a short span of about 80 to 100 years, is not true at all! we know that nothing exists for long on this earth, mrutyu lok, where everything is subject to deterioration, dissipation. persons, things and matter appear and disappear, sooner or later! This is the natural order. what all we see is just a continuous drama in the background of the Mind-screen. If the screen goes, the drama ends! this is just like the movie where there is a Producer, Director, and Actors along with the personnel holding camera, light. sound recorders and Film rolls! there is nothing more or less than this. We all appear on the stage, doplay our ordained role  It is the sense organs that go on errand at the command of the ego taking clues from the mischievous Mind and project umpteen images. The mind has no intelligence or discretionary power to interpret and realize the true nature of things. This presents a complex picture of the objective world. Moreover, there are limitations and intervening factors like time, distance, and causalities that change the reality and thereby confuse us. We cannot see the truth unless we cross the borderline of the reality and myth.

 Sri Shankaracharya called this objective world a myth since it changes with times. Anything that 'did not exist before' and 'will not exist after' a certain time will not be true at all! In order to be real or true, it must always exist without any change. It should be immortal, everlasting, unborn and never cease to exist if it is to be declared as true. In that sense, neither the sun or the planets, nor even the stars are not true. They are passing events in the history of the expanding universe. Each and every object is moving farther and farther, more so in the case of our relations in family, social and other fields of life! Just like in a movie theatre, only the background screen is real. The white wall projects films with actors as if they are real. This background screen is so merging with the passing objects on it that we mistake the even the make-believe show as the true one! This curtain, the screen, that covers the true has to be torn apart by a pair of scissors of discretion and knowledge. The truth dawns when the curtain of ignorance is torn apart. Only the screen, the empty wall, remains when the film show is over. This is stated as the "brahmn sat and the jagat myth."

 Now, coming to the central point again, "Is this objective world real?" Yes. It is real to the ignorant who is unaware of his/her true self. The revelation comes with the knowledge of the self, atmajnyan. Nothing is true that changes with time and distance and that is bound by causality. This applies to everything that exists in time and space. "Neither I exist, nor the world exists" when we close our eyes for a sec., and more so in deep sleep or yogic trance, nirvikalpa samadhi. In fact, the reality dawns in transcendental meditative trance! A yogi realizes the true nature of this objective world as well as his own in this state. Thus, Lord Sri Krishna advises us through Arjuna, "tasmad yogirbhava!