… it is not, the Vedantists say, that there is something as phenomenon and something as noumenon.
The rope is changed into the snake apparently only; and when the delusion ceases, the snake vanishes.
When one is in ignorance, he sees the phenomenon and does not see God. When he sees God, this universe vanishes entirely for him. Ignorance or Maya, as it is called, is the cause of all this phenomenon -- the Absolute, the Unchangeable, being taken as this manifested universe.
This Maya is not absolute zero, nor non-existence.
It is defined as neither existence nor non-existence.
It is not existence, because that can be said only of the Absolute, the Unchangeable, and in this sense, Maya is non-existence.
Again, it cannot be said it is non - existence; for if it were, it could never produce the phenomenon. So it is something which is neither; and in the Vedanta philosophy it is called Anirvachaniya or inexpressible.
- Swami Vivekananda,
Address to Graduate Philosophical Society,
Harvard University
The rope is changed into the snake apparently only; and when the delusion ceases, the snake vanishes.
When one is in ignorance, he sees the phenomenon and does not see God. When he sees God, this universe vanishes entirely for him. Ignorance or Maya, as it is called, is the cause of all this phenomenon -- the Absolute, the Unchangeable, being taken as this manifested universe.
This Maya is not absolute zero, nor non-existence.
It is defined as neither existence nor non-existence.
It is not existence, because that can be said only of the Absolute, the Unchangeable, and in this sense, Maya is non-existence.
Again, it cannot be said it is non - existence; for if it were, it could never produce the phenomenon. So it is something which is neither; and in the Vedanta philosophy it is called Anirvachaniya or inexpressible.
- Swami Vivekananda,
Address to Graduate Philosophical Society,
Harvard University
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