If you follow the teachings of Vedanta, you must have heard the sentence “The world (jagat) is mithya.” In Vedanta, this is a popular way to describe the world. Here, “mithya” is a Sanskrit word which means unreal, false, or that which is not real. Some even take the interpretation a step further by saying it means that the world is an illusion. According to this reasoning, if something is unreal it must be an illusion.

So, is the world mithya? We see the world “out there”; we interact daily with the world and all the objects therein; everything seems real “out there.” We can see these objects, we can touch them, dissect them, and investigate them. There is an unlimited number of objects in the world, right from small atoms to massive galaxies. So, how can the world be unreal or an illusion? Are all these objects unreal? Are all these objects an illusion? On what basis does Vedanta teach us that the world is mithya?

The focus of this essay is to discuss and investigate this fact. What does mithya really mean? If these objects are mithya, then what are all these unlimited objects “out there”? What exactly are these objects and of what are these objects made? To understand this, we will divide our discussion into the follow three sections:

1. What Is Real and UnReal?
2. Understanding Objects
3. Makeup of Objects

What Is Real and UnReal?

The classic statement taught by Adi Shankaracharya to understand Real and UnReal is—“Brahma Satyam Jagat Mithya.” Brahma is Real; the World is UnReal. This is a very popular and oft-quoted statement. In this statement, let us try and understand what Satyam or Sat means. Once we properly understand what Sat means, it will become easier to know what is mithya.

What Is Satyam or Sat: Sat means Real. If you look up any dictionary, you will get a wide variety of meanings for “real.” These dictionary meanings are no good for understanding Sat. According to Vedanta, for anything to be Sat, it must exist and be present in all the three tenses—past, present, and future. If you investigate Nature, you will not find anything which is Sat.

• This universe was born 13.7 billion years ago, and therefore it did not exist before that, so it cannot be Sat. We also know that if anything is born, it must die. So, Sat must be unborn. And anything which is unborn must be uncreated (to make it existent forever).
• Everything which is born must have a cause. You were born because of your parents, and they were born because of their parents. Since Sat is unborn, it is also uncaused. No cause created it. It was and it will be always present.
• If anything changes in any way, small (e.g., atoms have been displaced) or big (e.g., planetary positions are different), it is not the same as it was before. Therefore, it cannot be Sat, because Sat is unchanging.

With this analysis, it would mean that Sat is something which is uncreated, uncaused, unborn, and unchanging. That is the meaning of Satyam or Sat. The next question: what is this Sat and where does one find Sat? If you try looking for this Sat within the objects in the world, you will never be successful. Every object in this world has a start and end date, a date of birth, and a date of death. So, it does not meet the requirements of Sat. So where does one find Sat? Since Sat is not within this world “out there,” the only other place it can be is inside us, within us. How does one look within? For this, we must take the help of the teachings of Vedanta. Vedanta teaches us that Brahman or our innermost core (Atma) is the only thing which is Sat. We have discussed this topic in  many of my essays, and we have called this inner core the Bulb of Awareness. This Bulb of Awareness is the substratum of everything in the universe. It is the most powerful force in the universe. In my book, Science Meets Vedanta, we discuss this topic in many different places.

This Bulb of Awareness was present in the past, it is present right now, and it will be present in the future. It was present even before we were born and will be present even after we die. Since the Bulb of Awareness which is within us is the only Sat (Real), then logically everything else in the universe “out there” must be Mithya or UnReal. Therefore, the statement “jagat (world) is mithya” seems logical and correct. But it does seem quite difficult to grasp the idea that the world is mithya. How can it be? We see all the objects in the world; we can touch them, dissect them, and they seem quite real. So how does one understand this idea that the world and the objects therein are unreal.

The next step is to understand these objects “out there.” What are they really? Once you properly understand the objects, you will realize that all the objects “out there” are really “memory objects”; they are not “live objects” or “now objects.” 

Understanding Objects

Do we really live in the physical world made up of “live” or “now” objects? To answer this question truthfully, I have a challenge for you—show me a “current,” “live,” or “now” object in this world. Everything you see or interact with in this world is just a memory object. It is a dated object. There are no “now” or current objects in the physical world. The sun you see is not live; it is a “now minus eight minutes” version of the sun. Why? We know it takes light eight minutes to reach us from the sun, so the sun we see in the sky is a “now minus eight minutes” sun. It is not a “now” version of the sun. It is a dated version of the sun.

The sun we see is not a “live,” or “now” sun; it is basically a memory object which is a “now minus eight minutes” version. In the same way, the moon we see at night is a “now minus three seconds” version of the moon, because light takes three seconds to reach us from the moon. The plane in the sky is a “now minus 300 milliseconds” version; the tree outside my window is a “now minus 10 microseconds” version. This logic applies to every object in the physical world. It is just impossible for anyone to know or interact with a “live” or “now” object in this physical world. We interact only with memory objects. This not only applies to objects but also to people, animals, and any living being. For every object in the world, light will take a finite amount of time to reach us, and therefore they are only memory objects; they can never be “live” or “now” objects. Therefore, anything and everything in this physical universe is made up of only memory objects.

What an amazing conclusion; it so logical, so simple and straightforward to understand. So, if the objects are not “live” or “now” objects, then in a way they are really mithya objects. They are unreal objects; they are memory or mithya objects. The next question which surfaces is: can these memory objects exist on their own or are they dependent on something else? What is the substratum of these dated objects? What is the content of these memory objects?

Before we explore the substratum of these dated objects, it may be interesting to discover the location of the “now” or “live” objects. The memory or dated objects are what we see in the world “out there,” but where are the “now” objects? They must exist somewhere. They cannot not exist. But where? Let us explore this further.

Location of “Now” Objects: The best way to explore this topic is with an example. We saw earlier that the sun we see is a “now minus eight minutes” version. This is because light takes eight minutes to reach us. Let us play around with this idea. Suppose that, for whatever reason, the sun could move and we could see a “now minus four minutes” version of the sun … what does this mean? It means that light would take four minutes to reach us, and the sun would be located at the halfway mark, which will be nearer to us. If the sun moves even closer and we see the “now minus 30 seconds” version, it will mean that the sun is much closer to us. Using this reasoning, where do we find the “now minus zero seconds” sun? This must be the place where light will take zero seconds to reach us. The only correct answer is that the “now” version of the sun is within us as light will take zero seconds to reach us. This is the Observer within us. The “now” version of the sun is within the Observer, which is our inner core. This logic and reasoning apply not only to the sun but to every object in the universe. The location of all the “now” objects is within this Observer. Not an easy concept to grasp, but it is the only truth. Vedanta teaches us that there is a fully functioning universe made up of “now” objects which is part of our inner core. This inner core includes the Observer.

Makeup of Objects

We have just seen that there are only memory objects in the world “out there.” The question to investigate is whether these memory objects can exist on their own or they are dependent on something else. What is the content of these memory objects? What is the substratum of these objects? Scientists will tell us that these objects are made up of atoms and subatomic particles. They have found so many different subatomic particles, but they still have not found the ultimate substratum of all the objects. They are looking for the “Theory of Everything,” the substratum of everything in the universe. They can spend billions of dollars investigating, but they will never find the substratum of these memory objects in the world “out there.” They need a fresh and different approach. They need an approach based on the teachings of Vedanta.

A simple question—how do you know an object exists? The obvious answer is that you are aware of the object. Since you are aware, you are sure the object exists. If awareness is not present, then the object will not exist. Awareness is the basic ingredient of any object. This Awareness must fill up the object, take the exact shape as the object, so that you can be aware of the object. If you are aware of the tree outside your window, Awareness must fill up the tree completely, so that you are aware of the full tree. Awareness cannot fill up half the tree—then you would be aware of only half the tree. If you are new to my essays, I would recommend reading my book, Science Meets Vedanta. In the book, I have given a detailed analysis of the different powers of Awareness. If you properly understand Awareness, you will understand this world.

So, it seems that there is Awareness present, and the object form is superimposed on this Awareness to complete the object.

1. If you are aware of the car outside your window, it is because the form of the car is superimposed on Awareness.
2. If you are aware of the music from your device, it is because the form of the music is superimposed on Awareness.
3. If you are aware of the taste of the chocolate, it is because the taste form of chocolate is superimposed on Awareness.

Awareness is the ingredient, the substratum of all objects “out there.” Object forms vary, but the content of all objects is Awareness. The classic example given by Vedanta to understand this is the pot/clay example. We have a wide range of pots—small, big, round, etc., but the content of each pot is only clay. The forms may be different, but the content is only clay. You will notice that the pot form cannot exist on its own; the clay content is a must. Without the clay, there can be no pot form. In fact if you look for pot form, you will only find clay, you will never find pot form. This is exactly what happens with Awareness/form. There is such a wide range of object forms in the world. The content of all these objects is Awareness alone. These objects cannot exist without Awareness. If you look for object form, you will only find Awareness only. Just like clay is the only content of pots, in the same way Awareness is the only content of memory objects.

Did you notice that Awareness, which is the substratum of all the memory objects, is nothing but Sat? As we have discussed earlier, Sat is the Bulb of Awareness shining Awareness and is the content of every memory object. The object forms are superimposed on this Sat. The correct approach to understanding memory objects is that the content of each object is Sat only, but the object form is mithya. The object form cannot have an independent existence; it is totally dependent upon the content, which is Sat.

So, the correct understanding of Mithya is not UnReal or False, but something which does not have an independent existence and is dependent upon something else for its existence. In the case of memory objects, the existence is dependent upon Awareness or Sat. Without Awareness, there can be no objects in the world. So, Brahma (Inner Core) is Sat and Jagat (World) is Mithya. This Jagat is dependent upon Sat for its existence. Therefore, Jagat is Mithya.