All creation is illusory maya.  But accepting it as maya, it may be conceived that God (Is’vara) created the world as a mere sport; from the true point of view there is no Is’vara who creates the world, but in the sense in which the world exists, and we all exist as separate individuals, we can affirm the existence of Is’vara, as engaged in creating and maintaining the world.  In reality all creation is illusory and so the creator also is illusory.  Brahman, the self, is at once the material cause (upadana-kara@na) as well as the efficient cause (nimitta-kara@na) of the world.

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[Footnote 1:  S’a@nkara’s commentary, I.i. 2.  See also Deussen’s System of the Vedanta.]

439

There is no difference between the cause and the effect, and the effect is but an illusory imposition on the cause—­a mere illusion of name and form.  We may mould clay into plates and jugs and call them by so many different names, but it cannot be admitted that they are by that fact anything more than clay; their transformations as plates and jugs are only appearances of name and form (namarupa).  This world, inasmuch as it is but an effect imposed upon the Brahman, is only phenomenally existent (vyavaharika) as mere objects of name and form (namarupa), but the cause, the Brahman, is alone the true reality(paramarthika) [Footnote ref 1].

The main idea of the Vedanta philosophy.

The main idea of the advaita (non-dualistic) Vedanta philosophy as taught by the @S’a@kara school is this, that the ultimate and absolute truth is the self, which is one, though appearing as many in different individuals.  The world also as apart from us the individuals has no reality and has no other truth to show than this self.  All other events, mental or physical, are but passing appearances, while the only absolute and unchangeable truth underlying them all is the self.  While other systems investigated the pramanas only to examine how far they could determine the objective truth of things or our attitude in practical life towards them, Vedanta sought to reach beneath the surface of appearances, and enquired after the final and ultimate truth underlying the microcosm and the macrocosm, the subject and the object.  The famous instruction of @S’vetaketu, the most important Vedanta text (mahavakya) says, “That art thou, O S’vetaketu.”  This comprehension of my self as the ultimate truth is the highest knowledge, for when this knowledge is once produced, our cognition of world-appearances will automatically cease.  Unless the mind is chastened and purged of all passions and desires, the soul cannot comprehend this truth; but when this is once done, and the soul is anxious for salvation by a knowledge of the highest truth, the preceptor instructs him, “That art thou.”  At once he becomes the truth itself, which is at once identical with pure bliss and pure intelligence; all ordinary notions and cognitions of diversity and of the