The Vedantic rejection of the world as non-existent may sound fantastic to Western ears. It is, however, correct if the statement is limited to meditation experience and to metaphysical theory. It is not correct for the experience of practical living and psychological theory, since the senses and the thoughts are there working: they do not work at the deepest point of meditation. Because this difference is not usually made absolutely clear, confusion results. In any case, it is one-sided and unbalanced to go on babbling only that the world is non-existent and to keep on ignoring its existence to the senses and thoughts. A balanced philosophic view must combine the two understandings together and then there will be no confusion. It is a mockery of personal experience to tell those who are suffering from terrible maladies like cancer that the world, and therefore the body, are non-existent.
-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 2 : India Part 1 > # 363
