*POINTS TO PONDER* - Absolute Reality is the omnipresent, omnipotent, eternal, all-pervading , transcendental and self-effulgent 'SELF' (Truth- Being- Existence- Consciousness and Bliss); beyond space, time and causation, unaffected by birth, growth, disease, old age and death; already attained by everybody, unaware of ; manifesting as the phenomenal world, which is nothing but 'pure consciousness with names and forms'. -Swaathmaaraaman.

  Ramana Maharshi on 'REALITY'


Bhagavan: "What is the standard of reality? That alone is real which exists by itself, which reveals itself by itself and which is eternal and unchanging."
-Maharshi’s Gospel, p. 61

Because the nature of Reality is Whole, Self-radiant Existence, transcending time and space, Jnanis will never deem as real this world, which is destroyed by Time’s Wheel.
- Guru Vachaka Kovai v. 65.

To the ignorant, who believe it to be real and revel in it, the world that appears before them is God’s creation, but to the steadfast jnanis, who have known the bondage-free Self by direct experience, it is merely a deluding and binding concept that is wholly mental.
- Guru Vachaka Kovai v. 21

Understand well that the world-scene of empty names and forms, comprising the objects of the five senses perceived in the perfectly pure swarupa, the Supreme Self, is merely the divine sport of the mind-maya that arises as an imaginary idea in that swarupa, being-consciousness.
- Guru Vachaka Kovai v. 22

Question: Are names and forms real?

Bhagavan: You won’t find them separate from adhistana [the substratum]. When you try to get at name and form, you will find reality only. Therefore attain the knowledge of that which is real in all three states [waking, dreaming and sleeping].
-The Power of the Presence, part one, pp. 251-2

Do not get confused by abandoning the state of clarity, the swarupa perspective, and then pursue appearances, taking them to be real. That which appears will disappear, and hence it is not real, but the true nature of the one who sees never ceases to exist. Know that it alone is real.
- Guru Vachaka Kovai v. 25