You are taking a walk along the beach with a little girl, who looks at the beauty of the beach with amazement and wonder. The summer sun has begun to shine on the light brown sand. You continue to walk, but the child stops every now and then to pick something that is shining. She thinks it is a piece of silver and runs after it. She goes near it to pick it up, realising that it is a white piece of shining shell.
Sri Adi Sankaracharya in the Atma Bodha quotes this very common example of Vedanta to express a very enchanting misconception we live with. Jagat means the world.
It has just three things in various permutations and combinations. It has objects or rather thoughts that happen in our mind which are impressions of the objects seen outside. It has people who move about or sit quietly. It has situations which are nothing but a combination of objects and people, and the resultant feelings that they evoke in us.
All this is in a flux and is in a constant state of motion and change. A thought that existed a second ago in our mind is now gone. An object we were thinking about has now been replaced by another object. Even in the world outside, in what was an empty and unkempt piece of land, there is now a house. After a few years, that house is demolished and there is a bakery. In a few years’ time, someone has bought that place and started a hotel. The hotel too closes in course of time and it has become a shopping mall.
Even if many of these objects are apparently unchanging, the person who is witnessing that keeps changing. Finally, that person has passed on. Whether it is in the objective world outside or the subjective world within, change alone is constant.
Just like that shell which seemed so much like silver even as we were looking at it, the world seems to be so real and permanent when we are experiencing it. As long as this world appears real to us, we are never going to know the substratum on which happen our experiences, which is the Brahman. This Brahman is the basis for anything that exists—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
So long as we are engrossed in the drama going on between the images of the screen, we are never going to realise that the one white sheet of film is the substratum on which all these images and videos are being projected. The image may be that of a famous actor, a dancer, a comedian, a fire breaking out or a water fall. None of it will either wet the screen, burn it, make it bright or dull. The screen remains as it is, unchanging and pristine.