My understanding is that the key concept of Advaita Vedanta is Ajativada.
Ajativada means nonarising, noncreated etc.
That means, by default, everything is illusory.
That seems like a statement, or is it a question ?
Yes, everything is illusion, even the idea that everything is illusion. 
The circular logic of that perfect symmetry can be vaguely frustrating. Like trying to undo a knot only to find out you are the string.
It may not be the key concept, but it seems to be one of the key concepts. It depends on who you ask, and how you utilize the Advaita principles.
The practice of negating the manifest world is neti neti: not this, not that. But Advaita can also be used as a means of affirming knowledge–not just negating. So, you could say: Divinity is manifesting Herself on this Earth.
The door swings both ways when seeking the end of knowledge. It’s more like a dance than an attempt to arrive at a fixed conclusion. If you fixate on “everything is illusory”, then you are making the dance stagnant, rigid, one-directional. Better to say (in my opinion): Everything is illusory and not illusory at the same time. Then the dance remains fluid and mysterious, as it’s meant to be.
You have to be willing to swallow the pill of paradoxical truth to see how far down the rabbit hole goes. 
Exactly! 
I don’t think the point is to go around saying everything is illusory.
Logically illusion is just whats left over by default since nothing is created in the first place i.e. ajativada. The emphasis is on ajativada.
Hi KechariConfusion & All,
Advaita (which literally means “non-dual” in Sanskrit) works fine as reality, but can be a bit problematic as a philosophy, because as soon as you’ve made something a philosophy – it’s conceptual and dual.
Ajativada is just one concept in Advaita, and, as with most concepts regarding illusion, the illusion referred to is the illusion of limited mind, prior to awakening to our true nature.
Here are a couple of links you might find useful.
- Adi Shankaracharya wasn’t big on Ajativada; he taught an alternate view, called Vivartavada:
“According to this, the effect is merely an apparent transformation of its cause — like illusion. For example, in darkness a man often confuses a rope to be a snake. But this does not mean that the rope has actually transformed into a snake.”
Source: Wkipedia Article: Advaita Vedanta
Also:
Wikipedia article on Ajitavada.
I don’t think the point is to go around saying everything is illusory.
Logically illusion is just whats left over by default since nothing is created in the first place i.e. ajativada. The emphasis is on ajativada.
Well no, that's correct, but the upshot is thats what is proposed. In effect you chase ideas back to the point at which they dissolve. It's not easy to explain but it's simply a way of breaking the habit of attachment. You go round and round the logic loop until you have to give up. That's possible when guided, but for modern times I'm not sure it's a good idea, even though it's a good tool to use alongside DM. After you have refuted the illusion you realise that you are stuck with the illusion, however the status has changed. The illusion including the body is malleable because it is a projection. It's still reality though from a new perspective. The real self is able to swim in the new reality because it's now seen as part of the whole and no longer separated. In essence 'am' is generating the illusion and 'I' is free to be in union with the whole illusion. Illusion is the wrong name though because that's not the case either, only for practice should it be considered as illusion. If it was really illusion then 'i' would be free to control the illusion. Then you can see the contradiction because 'I' then attempts to take control of it and becomes deluded by success 'pleasure' and defeat 'suffering'. Identification happens and separation occurs. This is why the snake and the rope makes sense. In the dark ' without self knowledge and the unity of I with everything the rope is mistaken for a snake. With self knowledge the rope is seen for what it is. By now your either hopelessly baffled :grin: or my descriptions are so amazingly great you have transcended already :grin: ( I think not ). So to think of he world as an illusion is useful, but it isn't an illusion. It may not be a snake, but it is most certainly the rope and you are merged with it at that point where no separation can remain. In unity. It's a perspective thing and really quite impossible to explain, but that's an attempt. I'm not sure I want to post this now :blush: it sounds crazy when I read it back. Too late pressed the button.
I think any concept is correct ONLY if it is useful, i.e if it helps spiritual development.
And on different levels of spiritual development different concepts are useful; so different concepts are correct for different people, and also to the same guy at different times of his life.
Ramana Maharshi used to give very different answers to the same questions of different people. When asked why, he answered - I’m giving them answers which they can understand.
So the point is not if the world is an illusion or not - but what are the practical implications of this concept for our life and development. I.e. how can we apply it in our life.
One more comment. If by advaita we understand non-duality, then advaita of Shankara is not the only Advaita. There are others, like Shuddadvaita
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuddha_advaita
Yes, that is true Yuri.
Whatever tool in the bag it is, they are all just tools. Choose the best one at the time, none of them are the perfect tool. Explore them and learn to use them. Drop them when they don’t appear to do the job.
Marahashi was an old soul, he was wise enough to know what to say and when to say it. Right speech, right mind, right action.
Hi Kirtanman,
You are right that Gaudapada has more emphasis on non-origination than Adi Shankara. Gaudapada basically stole intact verses from Nagarjuna, used phrases that were found in Aryadeva etc. since he was trying to compete with Buddhism.
In my opinion, any viewpoint that is “realist”, including allmighty Kashmir Shaivism or Tsongkhapa, is a lower view that the nonrealists (Gaudapada, Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, Candrakriti).
Adi Shankara doesn’t impress me. There are contemporary accounts of him in the literature. He strikes me as much more ordinary as some people would make him seem.
I also used to think that all nondualities are the same, since by definition they are nondual.
There are actually two nondualities:
A. Everything is one, Monism i.e. kashmir shaivism
B. Everything is illusory i.e. Gaudapada, Nagarjuna, Aryadeva etc.
Then you have some late people like Adi Shankara or Tsongkhapa where crypto-realism has slipped in.
Hi Kechariconfusion and all,
If anyone is interested in this subject, it is very useful to read Yogani’s book on self-inquiry where he touches on the nature of advaita. Advaita can be a very confusing subject when approached at the level of the mind. This is because the mind is essentially dvaita and not advaita. In other words it is the one thing that cannot comprehend advaita.
The two statements above for example are the same, that everything is one, and everything is illusory. One follows from the other and vice-versa. But it is not something that can be understood, only something that can be realized.
It is also true that if everything is unreal, then everything is real. Everything is unreal to one who is lost in the dream state, but everything is real to one who is awake. As Nisargadata once said to one of his students: “everything in your world is unreal, everything in my world is real”. This really sums up all advaitic teaching.
Yogani’s book outlines the stages that have to be passed through in order to come to this realization of advaita.
Hi Christi,
The nature of the mind is rather easy. You got “now” on one hand, and the conceptualizing mind on the other.
I am talking more about Advaita Vedanta philosophy.
This is certainly the opposite of Gaudapada, Nagarjuna etc. who would say the world is illusory, and our concepts make things seem real…ergo the ubiquitous rope and snake analogy.
Thus an awake person loses the delusion of realism.
Hi Kechariconfusion,
Things are not always as simple as they seem and seeming opposites are not always opposites. This is the nature of the mind.
When you awaken, you awaken into reality, into what is always already the case. This is true for any awakened person, any advaita teacher, any sage. The confusion here is arising from the way some teachers teach. You see, some teachers don’t mention this. They will simply say that all is unreal. It is a teaching method designed to help people let go of the conceptualizing mind, and awaken from false identification.
People often look at the method and make it into a philosophy, another concept in the mind. So they will say: “so-and-so says that everything is unreal”, or they will say: “so-and-so says that everything is real”. In fact, they were never meant to be ontological statements, only techniques for working with the mind in order to attain liberation.
One of the teachings of the Buddha was that there is no “self”. So many people go around saying that they have no “self”. One day one of the Buddha’s monks questioned him on this. He said to the Buddha: “Is it true there is a self ?”, and the Buddha said: “no, it is not true”. Then the monk asked: “Is it true there is no self?”, and the Buddha said: “no it is not true”. Then the monk asked: “Is it true there is both a self, and no-self?”. The Buddha replied: “no it is not true”. Then the monk asked: “is it true there is neither self nor not-self?”, and the Buddha said: “no, it is not true”.
So you see, all our concepts are only just that, concepts. They have no substantial reality beyond the ephemeral world of the mind. When we let go of identification with conceptual existence they loose, or rather are seen to never have had, any relevance or bearing on truth itself. So statements such as “the world is real” or “the world is an illusion” are just concepts in the mind which have nothing to do with what is always already true, which is truth itself, reality itself.
It is true that the mind fabricates an artificial world and layers it over reality giving the illusion of reality, much like a rope might appear to be a snake. You could say that an awake person loses the delusion of an artificially fabricated universe and awakens to that which always was true, before identification with the body and the contents of the mind took place.
Hi Christi,
Thank you for the very informative post. Do you think that there are ongoing “layers” of perception? You discribed “awakening” into the unobscured view of the world, but then does it expand into an unobscured view of not being a “separate human”? And so on, and so on?
Not being separate from your world is what it is. The fact that their are individuals and animals and other things is unimportant to the whole being in unity.
Two things run simultaneously and are tied together by one.
Therefore the world is real.
The people in it are real.
And The world is illusion
The people in it are illusion.
This is an acceptable place because you are able to be in unity and then the world stretches out as you expand into it and with it. It’s similar to the idea of a big bang explosion, but there is no beginning or end and you and your world are what is created.
The expansion goes from nothing at all to infinity. At the smallest point which is sort of beyond unity there everything is, the world unfolds until it is real, but the point where it and you start remains. So people are individuals at the point where expansion occurs ( and expansion goes far beyond that point ), but everything is unity at the same time.
Nothing changes, but in a way everything changes because there is no requirement to interfere, yet nothing that is done affects the unity, but it does affect the expanded self.
I’m useless at explaining this. It’s easier just to do the DM and work at it than asking what it is. Primarily it’s impossible to describe because anything described will be incorrectly interpreted.
You are already where you think you are going, it’s only necessary to realise that is the case. You see the world as in unity and it doesn’t matter that it seems separate, thats just the magic of it.
This is outdated old info. Atman means identity, especially in the buddhist context. This is not my opinion, but the opinion of many including scholars such as Karl Brunnholzl.
So people and things are empty of the identity imputed by their mere conceptual labels.
You claim that things exist in the first place?
For things to be real, they would have to a)arise from itself b) arise from something other c) arise from both
For something to arise from itself, would bring up many logical contradictions. Why would something need to arise, if it already exists? And if arising is part of the object’s nature, you would have infinite arisings.
Something cannot arise from other, because a giraffe could then arise from a plasma TV. Or the traditional analogy, darkness could arise from flames.
So one cannot claim that anything exists.
This is outdated old info. Atman means identity, especially in the buddhist context. This is not my opinion, but the opinion of many including scholars such as Karl Brunnholzl.
So people and things are empty of the identity imputed by their mere conceptual labels.
Hi Kechariconfusion, It makes no difference. The self is our identity, it is that which we identify with.