Sometimes this question comes up: Is the world an illusion? Or even: Is the world a simulation? Let's have a look at this from the Non-Duality understanding.

We'll start with, 'Is the world a simulation?' Well, if it was then it's possible that whatever beings were controlling the simulation could also be considering if they are in a simulation, and so on and so on. It could be an endless rabbit hole of simulation anxiety.

Let's consider the possible illusion of the world. Maya is quite a well known Hindu philosophical term. It means magic or illusion and is used to describe the nature of the phenomenal world as illusory. It is the illusion that traps the soul in the endless round of rebirth, or samsara. The soul becomes entangled in karma, or the Law of Opposites as I call it, flowing back and forth between human incarnations, endlessly until enlightenment.

It's a useful understanding but not wholly accurate. No theory can ever be wholly accurate, anyhow. The Truth cannot be spoken or defined. It can only be pointed at, and that pointing is inevitably inferior to what it points to. Anyway, is the world an illusion? Ramana Maharshi explained, "The universe is real if perceived as the Self, and unreal if perceived apart from the Self. Hence maya and reality are one and the same." (The Self, with a capital S, is used to mean the true nature of being.)

What this means is that it's useful to understand the world as an illusion if one is caught up in it, caught up in the drama, caught up in the belief of separation. The belief of separation (or duality) is the crucial point. Non-Duality understanding explains that there is no duality. There are not many forms, many creatures, many people. The world is just One Being appearing as many. That's the illusion, that what seems to be a world of multiplicity, or many forms, is really just One, an Infinite Indivisible One.

As one breaks free from the belief of separation and duality, and explores the Non-Duality understanding, a realisation dawns. This apparent world of illusion cannot really be an illusion. There is only the Infinite Self, the Indivisible One. What appears to be something other than the Infinite Self is not 'other'. The illusion of multiplicity is only a mistaken perspective. The world is nothing other than the Infinite Self. So there really isn't an illusion, there is only the Real. There is nothing other than Reality. It's just that sometimes Reality is believed to be something it's not.

So there is a transition of development in Non-Duality understanding, from believing that the world is real, to recognising that it is illusory, to recognising that there is only the Real. There is a Zen quote attributed to Dogen: “Before one studies Zen, mountains are mountains and waters are waters; after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and waters are no longer waters; after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and waters once again waters.”

This doesn't mean that there was a duality and a world and later it is recognised that even the duality is the Infinite Self. It means that there never is a duality or world, and once this is realised the world can be spoken of without false separation, attachment and belief. There is only Reality, appearing to be mountains and waters.

Are the mountains, the waters and the planet a simulation? Well, yes and no. They're not really what they appear to be. There is only the Infinite Indivisible Self. We are That.