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later experiences, whereas the illusion of world-appearance is never
contradicted in this worldly stage and is thus called _vyavaharika_
(from _vyavahara_, practice, i.e. that on which is based all our
practical movements). So long as the right knowledge of the
Brahman as the only reality does not dawn, the world-appearance
runs on in an orderly manner uncontradicted by the accumulated
experience of all men, and as such it must be held to be true.
It is only because there comes such a stage in which the world-appearance
ceases to manifest itself that we have to say that from
the ultimate and absolute point of view the world-appearance is
false and unreal. As against this doctrine of the Vedanta it is
sometimes asked how, as we see the reality (_sattva_) before us,
we can deny that it has truth. To this the Vedanta answers
that the notion of reality cannot be derived from the senses, nor
can it be defined as that which is the content of right knowledge,
for we cannot have any conception of right knowledge without
a conception of reality, and no conception of reality without a
conception of right knowledge. The conception of reality comprehends
within it the notions of unalterability, absoluteness, and
independence, which cannot be had directly from experience,
as this gives only an appearance but cannot certify its truth.
Judged from this point of view it will be evident that the true
reality in all our experience is the one self-luminous flash of
consciousness which is all through identical with itself in all its
manifestations of appearance. Our present experience of the
world-appearance cannot in any way guarantee that it will not
be contradicted at some later stage. What really persists in all
experience is the being (_sat_) and not its forms. This being that
is associated with all our experience is not a universal genus nor
merely the individual appearance of the moment, but it is the
being, the truth which forms the substratum of all objective events
and appearances (_ekenaiva sarvanugatena sarvatra satpratiti@h_).
Things are not existent because they possess the genus of being
(_sat_) as Nyaya supposes, but they are so because they are themselves
but appearance imposed on one identical being as the basis
and ground of all experience. Being is thus said to be the basis
(_adhi@s@thana_) on which the illusions appear. This being is not
different with different things but one in all appear