The Serpent and the Rope

From Maha Yoga by K. Lakshaman Sharma, about Ramana Maharishi, or the Sage of Arunachala. This book was recommended to me by Andy at The Healing Place on Garfield in Park Slope. Thanks, Andy!

The passage is long and may get a little tedious, here's what I take it to mean:

The world and our identities are very convincing illusions created by the mind. Only a direct experience of non-duality (the true Self) can reveal the truth.

All the rest of us have to go on is faith and rhetoric. And hopefully, grace and intuition.

When a rope is first mistaken for a serpent, and then recognised as a rope, the serpent ceases to appear. That does not seem to be the case with the world. Even when it is known that the world is only an appearance of the real Self, the world continues to appear. This is the objection raised by one that has heard the teaching and been more or less convinced. The correct explanation is that mere theoretical knowledge does not dissolve the world-appearance, but only the actual Experience of the Self. But this explanation may be premature at this stage. Hence the Sage needs to convince us that a false appearance may continue to be seen even after it is known that the thing is false. This is illustrated by the analogy of the waste land on which a mirage is seen. The mirage is a false appearance, just like the snake, But it continues to be seen even after it is known that there is no water in the place. We thus see that the mere fact of an appearance persisting is no proof that it is real. But then a further doubt arises. The disciple says, the case of the mirage is distinguishable; the water of the mirage is conceded to be unreal, because even though it does not cease to appear after the truth of it becomes known, its unreality is proved by the water not being available for quenching thirst; the world is not so, because it continues to serve innumerable purposes. The Sage dispels this doubt by appealing to the experience of dreams. The things that are seen in dreams are useful; food eaten in a dream satisfies dream-hunger. in this respect the state of waking is in no way superior to the dream-sate; the use of dream-objects seems as valid within the dream, as the use of waking-objects within the waking state. A man that has just eaten a full meal goes to sleep and dreams that he is hungry, just as a dreamer, having eaten a full dream-meal, wakes hungry. Both are proved false in sleep. This much we have seen from the dream-analogy, that a thing may seem to satisfy a need, and yet may be an illusion. The fact is the need and its satisfaction are both equally unreal.p. 66-67