Chapter-2, Verse 9

Ashtavakra Gita Verse 2.9

अहो विकल्पितं विश्वमज्ञानान्मयि भासते। रूप्यं शुक्तौ फणी रज्जौ वारि सूर्यकरे यथा॥९॥

9. O Marvellous! The universe appears in Me, misapprehended through ‘ignorance’ just as silver in the mother-of-pearl, snake in the rope, and water in the sunlight. 

In all the immediately preceding five verses we have been provided with as many as five different examples to prove, or to indicate, that the Self is the cause for the universe and as such it pervades all the things and beings. If a pot is made out of mud, certainly the mud pervades the pot. But this is possible only because the mud can undergo modifications. The changeless Infinite knows no modifications and, therefore, even to assume that the world of plurality is an effect of the Supreme – the cause – is to accept the idea that in the Supreme a change had occurred. 

That which is changeable, is perishable. Thus, if we accept this assumption, the entire philosophy would crash into a jumble of twisted contradictions and logical absurdities!!! Janaka, here supplies us, in this verse, with another of the three famous comparisons of Vedānta, to indicate that the universe of names and forms is itself only an apparent illusion projected by the mind of the observer. Illusion cannot affect the substratum. They appear to exist only when the substratum is not directly perceived. With the apprehension of the Reality, the misapprehension ceases to be. 

As the silvery shine in a seashell or the vision of the snake on a rope or as mirage waters, so too the universe is apparently perceived upon Me, the Self. In my ignorance of the nature of the Self, I imagine and project the universe and with the discovery of the Self – with the Realisation that I am the Self – all illusions end.