"The Vedic view makes more sense to me. Whether you accept it or not, it’s logical and consistent, and in principle verifiable by personal experience.
The basic concept is that the the ultimate reality is consciousness, and the whole universe is a virtual construct within consciousness. Matter only exists virtually within consciousness.
So is the universe real? Both yes and no. It’s a virtual construct, so in that sense you can say it’s not real, but since consciousness is real, everything based on it is real.
Analogies help to clarify the ideas, though they have their limitations.
Analogy 1. Are the objects and locations in a computer games real? Both yes and no. No - because they only exist in the virtual space of the computer game, so in that sense they are illusionary. Yes - because if you are playing the game, you can’t take the attitude that objects don’t exist. They exist for all practical purposes within the game, and follow certain ‘laws of nature’ within the game. You have to treat them as real. You’re not going to win the game by doing nothing and saying that it isn’t real.
Analogy 2. Consciousness is like the ocean, and individuals are like waves on the ocean. Each wave has its own limited structure, individuality, and scope in time and space, but ultimately all waves are just perturbations of the ocean. The innermost self of all beings is the self of the universe, and because it’s all consciousness, individuals have free will.
Analogy 3. Another analogy is that individual consciousness is like white light passing through a glass of coloured water. The light passing through takes on qualities according to the reflecting/refracting medium. The individual consciousness is simply the universal consciousness reflected through the brain and body (which are themselves virtual constructs within consciousness). So any change to the brain results in a change of consciousness, like changing the colour of the water in the glass changes the colour of the reflection. But it is possible to refine the brain and body to reflect the pure white light of universal consciousness, and that is enlightenment."
"The sole reality is the infinite consciousness which is omnipresent, pure, tranquil, omnipotent. … Because the substratum (the infinite consciousness) is real, all that is based on it acquires reality, though the reality is of the substratum alone.
One cannot say that [the universe] is real or unreal, but one can only say that the substratum alone is real. The world exists in Brahman only as a word, an idea. It is neither real nor unreal.
The infinite consciousness is unmanifest, though omnipresent, even as space, though existing everywhere, is unmanifest. Just as the reflection of an object in crystal can be said to be neither real nor entirely unreal, one cannot say that this universe which is reflected in the infinite consciousness is real nor unreal. Again, just as space is unaffected by the clouds that float in it, this infinite consciousness is unaffected and untouched by the universe that appears in it.
Just as light is not seen except through the reflecting agent, even so the infinite consciousness is revealed through these various bodies. It is essentially nameless and formless, but names and forms are ascribed to its reflections.
Consciousness reflecting in consciousness shines as consciousness and exists as consciousness; yet, to one who is ignorant (though considering oneself as wise and rational) there arises the notion that there has come into being and there exists something other than this consciousness. To the ignorant this consciousness appears as the world-appearance; to the wise the same consciousness appears as the one Self.
This consciousness is not created, nor does it perish; it is eternal and the world-appearance is superimposed on it, even as waves in relation to the ocean. In that consciousness, when it is reflected within itself, there arises the ‘I am’ notion which gives rise to diversity.
In that infinite consciousness there is an inherent non-recognition of its infinite nature. That appears to manifest as ‘I’ and ‘the world’.
In the mirror of infinite consciousness countless reflections are seen, which constitute the appearance of this world. These are the individual consciousnesses. Individuality is like just a little agitation on the surface of the ocean of Brahman; or just a little movement in the flame of a candle in a windless room. When, in that slight agitation, the infinitude of the infinite consciousness is veiled, limitation of consciousness appears to arise. This too is inherent in that infinite consciousness. And that limitation of consciousness is known as the individual."
The above was something that someone said to me when we came to the discussion about an ultimate reality. I think it is based on Hinduism, because there is the idea of a “one consciousness” aspect to the whole thing. But it literally makes no sense to me and kind of smacks of either idealism or solipsism. He says it’s logical and consistent, but from what I read it just sounds like nonsense. I honestly have no idea where they get this stuff from, if it’s based on meditation then that has it’s own set of problems (since we find that meditation’s realizations are really just the byproduct of when happens to the brain during it,this has been lab tested). It also assumes there is an infinite consciousness, it actually assumes a lot of things that make no real sense. How do they know it is infinite? I don’t know. Analogy 3 assumes too much to really be a logical explanation.
