what if the world is not an illusion?

Relative and absolute reality.

The distinct feeling of difference in the nature of reality of the world and Me is described as similar to the relationship between a dream and me. we say the world is an illusion. In a dream, I eat ice cream. I wake up. Who ate the ice cream? certainly not me. It appears that my dream-self ate it. But there is no way my dream-self could have known it, since it simply does not exist. I am the only person who knows it. But... I did not eat the ice cream! and hence nobody ate it. Similarly we say nobody experienced/experiences the world.

What if the world is not a dream. what is the basis to say world is a dream? Is just the temporariness/impermanent-ness alone qualify it to be a dream world? dream world is unreal not because it is impermanent. but because it is different order of reality. howsoever infinitesimal the life time is, how so ever infinitesimal the size is(subatomic particles, energy-matter transformation) there is an experience which we cannot deny. the body and everything in the world appears to be impermanent. does it mean it is unreal? it only means it is temporary. its life span is short. what if every cell/atom/particle gets replaced? it is still the same body/mind. the individuality is not lost. so we cannot say it is an illusion just on the basis of its temporariness. we cannot equate it just because of the impermanence of the body, or of anything in the world.

So is this world real?

Now the enjoy er comes into the picture. If I assume that this is 'the' real world, and I begin an enquiry on who am I..after negating everything to be 'me', hoping to find myself after going deeper and deeper, in search of the ultimate reality to be some mysterious magical thing, I realize that the fact of the matter is 'I' am nowhere to be found!!!

In this world I do not exist!! I simply cannot find me. As long as this world is real, I will not be able to find me anywhere. this is a great truth that just dawned on me. this gives great clarity. I do not exist in this world. but.... I know I exist!!


This world then is simply a different order of reality. and since I know I exist for sure, this world must be a lower order of reality and 'hence' an illusion similar to the dream. and even if for the sake of argument there are several such worlds existing, they all will be lower orders of reality since I will not be found in any of them, but I will still be existing.