Aptavani-1
25
and seer but instead with your wrong belief of ‘I am Chandulal’,
you have become what you are not. You have become the
owner of something that is not yours and you have been deriving
pleasure and pain from it. That is why you are constantly
experiencing worries, affliction and agitation. You continue to
struggle hopelessly like a fish out of water. The wealthy people
have all the material comforts but have sleepless nights because
of worries.
The World And The Self
Dadashri : Is this world real or is it an illusion?
Questioner : An illusion.
Dadashri : No, it is not so. I will explain what an illusion
is. It is an illusion when you pull your pants up believing you are
standing in water but nothing gets wet. It is an illusion if you
touch what looks like fire but it does not burn you. People say
that the Self (Atma) is real and the world is an illusion. If that
is the case, then put your hand in a fire and find out whether it
is an illusion or not.
One can tell whether it is an illusion or not by looking at
the effects. For example, if you throw a brick on a wall, you will
not see any effect on the brick or the wall if the world were an
illusion. But it is not an illusion because you will see a red mark
on the wall and the brick too will be broken. Another example
is that if someone tells you, ‘You have no sense’ and his or her
statement has no effect on you, then it would prove that the
world is an illusion. But instead what happens is that the effect
of such a statement will be there even when you wake up in the
middle of the night and remember what was said to you. This
proves that the world is not an illusion.
I am saying that the world and the Soul (the Self) are
both true. The world is a relative truth and the Self is the real