Did Adi Shankara expect atheists to experience the external world as unreal to them?

[An online spiritual discussion was conducted on April 03, 2021, in which several devotees participated. Some of the questions of devotees answered by Swāmi are given below.]

[Śrī Anil Antony said: Pādanamaskāraṃ Swami! You have explained through the snake-rope analogy that one can mistakenly experience the unreal snake to be real. But one can also overcome the illusion and experience the unreal snake to be unreal, by realizing the real rope to be real. God similarly experiences the unreal world to be real for the sake of entertainment, but He can also overcome the illusion and experience it to be unreal, when He wants to perform miracles. Śaṅkara made atheists believe that they are experiencing the unreal world as real, in the same way as God, and that they can also realize it to be unreal. This prompted the atheists to think that this world is unreal, even for them. But they could not reach that state practically. So, Śaṅkara said that there are two steps in attaining that experience—one is theoretical and the other is practical. The theoretical part can be attained by one’s self effort while the practical part is attained by developing devotion to God. Could You please confirm if my understanding is correct?]

Swāmi replied: An atheist has no alternative except to be told by Śaṅkara that he is the God. For God, this external unreal world becomes real for the sake of His entertainment due to the power of His omnipotence. Hence, for atheist also this unreal world must be told as real just like in the case of God. These statements are told by Śaṅkara under inevitable circumstances in dealing with the atheists. Actually, neither soul is God nor this unreal world is real to the soul for the sake of its entertainment. This unreal world is real to the soul because for the unreal soul, the unreal world is actually real. The reality of the world for God is in the angle of entertainment whereas the reality of this world for soul is in the angle of serious reality of the basic concept. The reality of the world for God is thus used for the soul by Shankara to support His theory. If the word “soul” is taken in the sense of human incarnation, then, whatever is told for God is totally applicable to the soul of human incarnation. The word Ātman can mean:- 1) As soul of yourself or as soul of any other person. 2) As soul and body of yourself or soul and body of any other person. This facility was also used by Śaṅkara to say that soul is God. Actually, when soul is meant as God, the soul and body of human incarnation must be taken as the meaning. All these twists were done by Shankara for the sake of atheists, who were surrounding Him in His time and His aim was to uplift them by making them to accept the existence of God. A very patient analysis is needed to understand the philosophy of Śaṅkara.

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