what is the standard of Reality?

 

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You want somehow or other to maintain that the world is real. What is the standard of Reality? That alone is Real which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and unchanging. Does the world exist by itself? Was it ever seen without the aid of the mind? 

In sleep there is neither mind nor world. When awake there is the mind and there is the world. What does this invariable concomitance mean? 

You are familiar with the principles of inductive logic, which are considered the very basis of scientific investigation. Why do you not decide this question of the reality of the world in the light of those accepted principles of logic? 

Of yourself you can say ‘I exist’. That is, yours is not mere existence, it is Existence of which you are conscious. Really, it is Existence identical with Consciousness.

—Ramana Maharshi

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There is no time in nature. There is rhythm in nature, yes. There is motion in nature. But the clock as a measure of motion is a human artifact. 

The world, as it spins on its axis, doesn’t tick.

—Alan Watts 1967

 

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As the self moves in this body from childhood to youth to old age, so it passes into another body at death. 

The wise are not confused by this change.

—Bhagavad Gita, 2.13

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