As I have been hinting I have always had a problem with the Advaitic use of the term ‘real’. How does the apophatic, that which outruns the mind, about which we cannot speak, how can it be real or unreal? It is beyond all that. The state of realization is such that mundane life is obliterated by bliss. Well, let it be so, but that does not derealize it. The contrast between the state of the sage and that of the seeker may be such that the one causes the other to lapse into insignificance, mere Maya, a misconception. The deep structure of reality is the truth; all else a veil. In my view it isn’t possible to totalize the use of the polar concepts real/unreal in this fashion. They always occur within a world. ‘Is this real butter's? ‘That is a fake Rolex, but a real watch’. ‘Your fears are unreal’ ‘That’s what I call real hospitality’.
etc., etc., Without labouring the point the use of terms real/unreal are contrasitive.
This problem is recognised by Sankara who holds that the Vedas themselves become ‘unreal’ for the enlightened to which the objection comes - what use are they then, how can the real be achieved by use of the unreal? The answer which amounts to - you’ll know when you get there, for now keep saying your prayers.
Is this satisfactory if in fact the deep structure of reality underwrites what ‘Vedanta Paribhase’ calls perceptuality? That superimposition is possible as in normal perception is due to the unity of being.
Swami S.S.S. remarks in his work on the preamble to the B.S.Bh.:
This argument does not hold water here; for the
wisdom of the Unity of Atman is attained only after
sublating all empirical thought. The Sruti also says
, What could one know and with what, when to the
knower, all has become Atman alone?' (Br. 4-5-15).
Sankara himself writes in so many words :-
" Nor is it possible to say that this intuition is use·
less, or that it is a delusion; for we see that it removes
avidya and that there is no other knowledge sublating
it. We _have already stated that it is only before the
intuition of the Unity of Atman, that all conventions
of real and false, obtain." SBh. 2-1-14, pp. 19, 20.
Is not the latter observation by Sankara on the convention of true/false or real/unreal a tacit recognition of what I have been holding. When you are beyond all those pairs of opposites or polar concepts they become useless.
