Ramana Maharshi Quotes

Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Because our entire universe is made up of consciousness, we never really experience the universe directly we just experience our consciousness of the universe, our perception of it, so right, our only universe is perception.

Reality: What a concept!

The world doesn't just disappear when you close your eyes, does it?

The relationship between the imagined and the real is more complicated than people imagine.

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

That which is cannot be true.

What is reality, anyway? Just a collective hunch.

What we think about Paris is a part of how we feel about it. Our idea of Paris is our idea and we don't know that that's not necessarily the way it really is. It feels so real.

What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case, I definitely overpaid for my carpet.

Reason is the illusion of reality

The world consists of images on a screen, and consciousness is the steady light that emanates from the projector.

Society? Can we trust us? Doubt it. We're probably not even real, as was revealed in the popular documentary The Matrix. That bloke next door? Made of pixels. Your co-workers? Pixels. You? One pixel. One measly pixel. You haven't even got shoes, for Christ's sake.

The world, life and human beings are only an illusion, a phantom, a dream image.

There are other relations besides reality, which the mind is capable of grasping and which also are primary, like chance, illusion, the fantastic, the dream.

I think reality is over-rated

'Tell me one last thing,' said Harry. 'Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?' Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure. 'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?'

Consciousness is either inexplicable illusion, or else revelation.

Your mind makes out the orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it and thinking about it but without this mind, you call it, the orange would not be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually, that orange, depending on your mind to exist! Don't you see that? By itself it's a no-thing, it's really mental, it's seen only of your mind. In other words it's empty and awake.

Consciousness ... is the phenomenon whereby the universe's very existence is made known.

The physical universe that you see is all in your mind. When you turn your mind off, or become unconscious, the physical universe, for you, disappears. Then, when you awaken your consciousness, the universe reappears magically. Quite simple really - no thoughts on your part, no physical world. As Walt Whitman succinctly stated: "The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You." Without your mind to process it, the universe simply disappears into nothingness.

It's hard to tell that the world we live in is either a reality or a dream.

The part of my brain that was responsible for creating the world I lived and moved in and for taking the raw data that came in through my senses and fashioning it into a meaningful universe: that part of my brain was down, and out. And yet despite all of this, I had been alive, and aware, truly aware, in a universe characterized above all by love, consciousness, and reality. There was, for me, simply no arguing this fact. I knew it so completely that I ached.

How can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't real?