Is the World an Illusion?

Some text books on non-dual philosophy tell us that Shankaracharya designated the ultimate Reality by the term ‘nirguna Brahman’ or quality-less Brahman. They say he thought this was quality-less, changeless and beyond the realm of cause and effect. If we are to look, therefore, in his system for the cause of the universe of qualities spread out before us, we must turn to his conception of ‘saguna Brahman’—Brahman with qualities, that is, associated with the creative power, Maya.

Saguna Brahman is thus taken to be the principle that mediates between the changeless Reality and the world of changing forms. It is also said to be called Ishvara. And, since Reality is actionless and quality-less, both Ishvara and the world are illusory.

Sometimes those who expound Shankara in this way and take the term nirguna to mean without features, declare that nirguna Brahman is a bare abstraction, an empty concept, not merely less than reality, but actually indistinguishable from non-reality.

In the following paragraphs an attempt is made to show why these interpretations are mistaken. Our view is that nirguna Brahman is not an empty concept; there is not, in Shankara’s own writings, a special metaphysical principle called Ishvara postulated to mediate between the changeless and the changing; and the external world is not an illusory system of qualities that contrives for a time to overspread and hide the qualityless Reality.