Advaita Vedānta understands the physical world as neither absolutely real nor sheer nonexistence, but as *mithyā*: an appearance that is empirically valid yet ultimately dependent. The manifold universe is regarded as a superimposition (*adhyāsa*) upon Brahman, the one nondual reality, much like a rope mistaken for a snake or the vivid landscape of a dream. This world is experienced and acted within at the *vyāvahārika* (practical) level, where bodies, objects, and causal laws function meaningfully. Yet from the *paramārthika* (ultimate) standpoint, only Brahman truly is; the world has no independent reality apart from that pure consciousness. Its apparent existence is sustained by *avidyā* (ignorance) and *māyā*, through which Brahman seems to appear as multiplicity and change. When true knowledge arises, this appearance is not destroyed as a thing, but is recognized as never having been other than Brahman.

The ego (*ahaṅkāra* or *jīva*) is viewed in a parallel way, as a construct born of ignorance and rooted in misidentification. It is the sense of “I am this body–mind,” a function of the subtle mind (*antaḥkaraṇa*) that claims ownership of thoughts, actions, pleasure, and pain. This ego is part of *māyā* and belongs to the same *vyāvahārika* order as the world: pragmatically operative, yet lacking ultimate self-existence. Advaita sharply distinguishes this changing, appropriating ego from the true Self (*Ātman*), which is pure, witnessing consciousness, unchanging and identical with Brahman. The individual person as ordinarily conceived is thus a mixture of consciousness and limiting adjuncts (*upādhis*), not consciousness itself. Liberation (*mokṣa*) consists in the dissolution of this false identification through knowledge, the clear recognition expressed in the mahāvākya “aham brahmāsmi” – “I am Brahman” – whereby both world and ego are seen as mere appearances in the light of nondual reality.