Q: How did ‘I’, the all knowing, all loving, all powerful, the absolute & infinite blissful ONE, without a second, come to deceive itself, and place itself in this illusion of illusions? How or why did the Ultimate Reality have this come to pass? (Sept 2010)

A: The spirit of your question is unanswerable – it is effectively asking why there is Self-ignorance and this is said to be anirvachanIya – inexplicable. From the standpoint of absolute reality, of course, there is no deception because there is no creation; and there is no illusion because there are no persons to be deluded. There is only brahman – satyam j~nAnam anantam as the taittirIya upaniShad says, limitless consciousness. It is only from the perspective of this apparently limited entity, the mind of the person, that there seems to be a problem. Once the truth is realized, it is also seen that there is no problem because everything is brahman – sarvaM khalvidam brahma.