Comparing Upanishads And Brahma Sutra

However, the Upanishads and Brahma Sutra also regard Brahman as the cause of the universe. All schools of Vedanta hold that Brahman is both the material cause, upādānakāra aṇ , and the efficient cause, nimitta kāra aṇ , of the world. The world, which is material in nature, consists of countless living and non-living beings, is ever changing, and is characterized by dualities such as heat and cold, joy and pain; it is, in every way, the opposite of Brahman. How can two totally dissimilar and incompatible entities,

Brahman and the world, have any causal relationship at all? If Brahman is the sole reality, how and where can the world exist?

The common answer, based on a superficial understanding of Advaita, is that Brahman alone is real whereas the world is unreal, and the causal relationship between the two is

This kind of statement is usually nothing more than parroting without any deep thinking. How can we regard as illusory this unimaginably complex world which almost all people perceive to be real? When we actually see an illusion, such as mistaking a rope for a snake, it takes only a little time for us to realize that it is an illusion. Moreover, the snake seen on a rope does not bite, the water seen in a mirage does not slake our thirst. But the world we live in, which gives us innumerable types of joyful and painful experiences, challenges, changes, relationships, endless events, quest for meaning, and so on, cannot be dismissed so easily as illusory.

Shankara’s solution to the problem of the coexistence and cause-and-effect relation between nondual Brahman and the finite world was to posit a two-level reality. One level is pāramārthika-sattā, absolute Reality; this is what Brahman is. The other is vyāvahārika-sattā, empirical or relative reality; this is what the world is. But then, how can there be two kinds of reality? It is clear that the term ‘reality’ needs proper