The Two Levels of Reality (Pāramārthika & Vyāvahārika)
Three grades of the real: the absolute, the everyday-reliable, and the merely-apparent dream.
Advaita resolves the tension between 'only Brahman is real' and the obvious reality of the everyday world by distinguishing levels of reality. From the absolute standpoint, only the non-dual Brahman truly is. From the conventional standpoint of ordinary life, the world and its objects are entirely real and behave reliably — real enough to live and act by. And below that is a third grade: things that are merely apparent, like the snake seen in a rope or objects in a dream, real only while the error lasts. Liberation is the shift to the absolute standpoint, at which the lower grades are seen through.
Key passages(16)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
The unreal never is. The Real never is not. Men possessed of the knowledge of the Truth fully know both these.
Tap to expand
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
What is here (visible in the world), the same is there (invisible in Brahman); and what is there, the same is here. He who sees any difference here (between Brahman and the world), goes from death to
Tap to expand
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'This eternal being that can never be proved, is to be perceived in one way only; it is spotless, beyond the ether, the unborn Self, great and eternal.
Tap to expand
'These true desires, however, are hidden by what is false; though the desires be true, they have a covering which is false. Thus, whoever belonging to us has departed this life, him we cannot gain bac
Tap to expand