In this conversation, Swami Medhananda explores one of the central questions of Indian philosophy: whether the world we experience is ultimately real or, as Advaita Vedanta holds, maya — a dream of names and forms over a single transcendent consciousness. He speaks to the teachings of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda, and defends his own interpretation, “Vijnana Vedanta,” against the strict non-dualism of Shankara, arguing for a reality that is not illusory but infinitely manifested. A monk and philosopher, he draws the subtleties of Vedantic metaphysics into a living inquiry into the nature of the real.