WHY THE UNIVERSE IS NOT REAL

Liberation is the 'realization' of the total nonexistence of the universe as such. This is very different from a mere denial of the existence of the ego and the universe! The latter is only half knowledge. Liberation is to 'realize' that all this is pure consciousness (awareness).

(Concise Yoga Vasistha - pg 55 - ISBN: 087395954X)

They who say that this universe exists in a seed-state after the cosmic dissolution are those who have firm faith in the reality of the universe! This is pure ignorance. It is a totally perverted view which deludes both the teacher and the hearer.

The seed of a plant contains the future tree: this is because both the seed and the sprout are material objects which are capable of being apprehended by the senses and the mind.

But that which is beyond the reach of the mind and the senses (awareness) - how can that be the seed for the worlds?

In that which is subtler than space (formless awareness), how can there exist the seed (objective form) of the universe?

When that is so, how can the universe (material form) emerge from the supreme being (immaterial awareness)?

How can something exist in nothing? How can a tree spring out of the empty space in a jar? How can two contrary things - immaterial awareness and the material universe - co-exist? Can darkness exist in the sun?

It is appropriate to say that the tree exists in the seed, because both of these have appropriate (material) forms. But in that which has no material form (awareness) it is inappropriate to say that this cosmic form of the material world exists.

Hence, it is pure foolishness to assume that there exists a causal relationship between consciousness (awareness) and the world.

The truth is that consciousness (awareness) alone exists and what appears to be the world is that alone (an appearance imagined in awareness).

It is as real as a dream-vision; for it is produced out of nothing by no one with no instruments on nothing.

(Concise Yoga Vasistha pg 120 to 121 - ISBN: 087395954X)