[Advaita-l] I am Alone in the Universe?

[S Srivastava]

But Jeeva is saying I am Alone in Universe because all these people I
> am seeing and things and the Universe I am seeing itself is my dream.
> There is no proof for these people being actually real.


Sir: This point needs to be further elaborated to avoid Advaita ending up
in solipsism.

It is correct that there is no proof for "these" people being actually
real. However there is no proof either for this particular body and mind to
be actually real. In dream I have a different body and a different mind. In
deep sleep I have neither any body nor any mind.

All I can say for sure is that something is being experienced right now.
Sat and Chit aspect of experiencing are self evident and do not need any
proof. No one can convince you otherwise because it is known immediately.

All other experience -including that of this body mind- is made up of
sensations and thoughts and images as they appear in  awareness. There is
no way to ascertain if there is any real "thing-in-itself" corresponding to
each of them. Apart from these appearances in I awareness there is nothing
that I have ever experienced in past or will ever experience in future.
Belief in the existence of any reality independent of "I" awareness is just
that - a belief.

In fact even to say that all that I experience is appearances in my I
awareness is saying too much. The feeling of I experiencing something is
also part of the same experiencing - appearing as though it is a separate
entity experiencing the experienced. There is no center in this
experiencing. The feeling that the body or the part behind the brows
is experiencer is part of the total experience.



> They are not
> Jeevas like me. They look like me they talk like me they behave like
> me but they are dream objects. My parents and wife and children are
> dream objects.


Sure. But what about the body which is seeing these words and the mind that
is interpreting the meaning of these words? Are they real or unreal? As
long as they appear real, the parents and wife and children are also real.

praNAm