Ultimate Reality and Solipsism.
When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.
Question:
Dear Deepak, I’ve been studying Vedanta, and advaita, and of course I follow your work, and I trust your opinion and knowledge of Vedanta, and I have to ask you a question that is really has me feeling terrible. Understanding that Brahman is the ultimate reality, meaning there is one consciousness, and that the idea of individuality and mind is a projection of that, leads to the idea that all others are merely a projection of myself. I understand the “myself” in that statement as Brahman, but the idea lends itself to solipsism, and while I can understand the idea that my identity as an individual is merely a projection of Brahman, the idea that my wife and children are just mental projections and not “real” disturbs me. It just seems to lend itself to the idea that all others are not real, and I am sort of thing and that bothers me, yet the whole prospect of Vedanta is that all is Brahman, and that even myself in this form, do not exist. Can you help me with this??
Response:
Vedanta is first and foremost knowledge pertaining to a state of consciousness— a living, experienced reality. It is not a theoretical philosophy meant to be studied as an intellectual exercise divorced from one’s experience. This is where people get confused and mixed up about Vedanta. It describes the state of awakening in which one knows one’s self as that universal existence. That experience of life is not remotely the philosophy of solipsism, where one believes they are the only person is existence and everyone and everything only exists as a creation/projection of one’s individual mind.
Fully awakened consciousness knows itself as pure existence, the wholeness of life, or Brahman. For the enlightened person, everything is Brahman, everyone is Brahman, it is all real.
Don’t try to make Vedanta real through your intellect. That is how the ideas start to “disturb” you. Let your awareness expand and deepen until you experience this reality as your core self. Then you will know this in a way that gives you peace and joy. That is the only way to understand Vedanta.
Love,
Deepak
