Everything we see and experience are objects. By definition, an experience is practical contact with and observation of facts or events. This requires two participants: the experiencer and the experienced. The former is the subject and the latter is the object. These two must be present in any experience; without both it cannot be called an experience.
Gross objects and sensory experience
On the gross level we see various things through our sensory inputs – sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. These sensory inputs cause us to experience gross objects. We are the subject and the outward things we experience are objects. These objects produce impressions, reactions, and behaviour. The thoughts and behaviour patterns that follow are physically manifested as changes in neurons and their connections in our brain. What we observe here is still gross matter projecting or manifesting what our thinking faculty is going through on a gross level.
The subtle mind and the hard problem
This leads to our thinking faculty, manas. Along with the storehouse of impressions – saṃskāra (memory, chit), ahaṃkāra (I‑ego), and buddhi (intellect) – it forms the internal organ, antaḥkaraṇa. This is subtle, and this is where the hard problem of consciousness lies. Science can tell us how neurons fire and how circuits are arranged, but it cannot tell us why there is a texture to experience: why there is the ache of longing, the warm glow when we stand in the sun, the inner feel of shame when embarrassed. The mechanism is clear – neurons, receptors, and circuits – but the subjective feel is not. These subtle qualities are themselves objects of experience.
Because these inner states are experienced, the mind remains an object and not the experiencer. The experiencer is not the mind. Like an eye that cannot see itself without a mirror, the mind cannot be the ultimate subject; it is a reflecting instrument.
The causal level and adṛṣṭa
When we are faced with a multitude of information or objects, and they produce subtle cognitive effects and gross consequences through action, there is a still subtler reason or kāraṇa at work. This causal level is the subtlest of all and remains adṛṣṭa – unseen. We infer its presence because of effects, not because we directly perceive it. These unseen causes are not false; they are not like a rabbit’s horn. They can be inferred and, in some ways, observed through their consequences. This kāraṇa is therefore also an object and not the observer. I remain different from all three levels we have discussed: gross, subtle, and causal.
Confusion, mithyā, and the origin of saṃsāra
A great deal of misunderstanding arises when we confuse object and subject. This confusion increases as we move from gross to subtle to the most subtle. To a naïve mind it is difficult to discern which is object and which is subject. This very confusion is the cause of saṃsāra. The binding becomes so great that it causes delusion. A deluded mind interprets information about the perceived and the perceiver incorrectly, leading to sorrow and further bondage.
The world that supports this delusion is illusory in a specific sense: it is mithyā – that which exists but can be cancelled when the true nature is seen. A classic way to understand mithyā is the rope – snake example: in dim light a rope appears as a snake; the snake‑appearance exists as an experience but dissolves when the rope is seen clearly. The appearance is not absolutely real (sat) nor absolutely unreal (asat); it is dependent and cancellable.
Māyā as concealment and projection
The effect of mithyā is produced by two principal powers: concealment (āvaraṇa) and projection (vikṣepa). The entity that produces these is called māyā. Māyā does not have independent existence. Like the objects of experience, māyā’s existence is borrowed. From whom? From Brahman. We say that Brahman is the material from which māyā also appears, just like the rest of the objects that are cast from it. Both Brahman and māyā are anādi (without a beginning), however Brahman is the support and māyā is utterly dependent on Brahman to exist. The materiality (upādāna) of māyā is not separate from Brahman; māyā borrows being from Brahman in the way a reflection borrows light from the sun.
Māyā hides the true nature of reality by its power of concealment and makes objects appear by its power of projection. The mind, though itself a subtle object and different from the subject, is the instrument by which the observer can come to see through māyā. A mind trained in discrimination can reveal the true nature of objects and cancel their illusory status.
Brahman as the substratum and liberation
Brahman is the unchanging substratum. The world appears upon Brahman like waves upon the ocean; the waves are not separate from the ocean, yet the ocean remains unchanged. Brahman is not transformed into the world; the world appears while Brahman remains the support. When the mind, which is itself an object, ceases to veil the subject, the experiencer recognizes its identity with Brahman. In that recognition māyā’s spell is broken. The illusory appearances are cancelled and freedom is revealed. Liberation is not the acquisition of something new but the removal of ignorance so that what was always present is seen.
Closing reflection
The inquiry from gross sense‑objects through subtle mental states to the causal ground is not merely intellectual; it is soteriological. Distinguishing subject from object at every level dissolves the confusion that binds us. When the veil of māyā is lifted by discrimination and direct seeing, the experiencer abides as the ever‑present reality – Brahman – and the play of mithyā falls away.