I would like to discuss the interpretation of Jagat Mithya. It is abstract enough that everyone appears to have his or her own conception of it. My own understanding at this time is its meaning (along with prajnanam Brahma) is very similar to Solipsism.
What is your understanding of Solipsism, and what is your understanding of Mithyatvam?
Please post your understanding of what it means to you and how you arrived at the interpretation. Does mithya here mean that the universe disappears at some point or is it something else?
In my understanding, to say that the world is mithya means that it is dependently existing only. In other words, it does not exist in and of itself (and to think otherwise is a mistake), but rather it has a temporary and borrowed existence within a greater reality. The greater reality is called satyam. Satyam is unchanging, always a positive entity, can never be negated or sublated by anything else, and is the basis or substratum for all temporary names and forms which
appear to exist for a short time or until they are negated\sublated.
To give a simple example. We have a table which is made of wood. Before the name and form called "table" existed, the name and form called "tree" existed. In both instances, the wood is the common substratum or substance which inheres in both the name and form called table and the name and form called tree. Therefore, relative to the wood, table and tree are dependently existent, mithya, and the wood is satyam. The wood can appear in many forms with many names, such as tree, table, chair, cup, etc, and yet it remains, essentially, wood. The names and forms are temporary, and have no existence outside of their appearance in the wood, but the wood is not limited to any particular name or form. Through our understanding we can recognise that the wood is common to all the names and forms, therefore it is their ultimate reality, and through this recognition the mithya names and forms are sublated, or merged, as it were, in their cause. That is why we can say that when we perceive a table, or a chair, we can know "there is only wood". The statement does not, in the final analysis, contradict our perception, but rather it corrects it.
In the same way we come to understand that the
jagat itself which comprises countless names and forms is essentially none other than Brahman perceived (wrongly) in a manifold fashion. When we take the multiplicity of names and forms as satyam, as the reality, then that is a mistake, and so we talk of the world as something that exists in and of itself, and therefore we do not see the common substratum of the world, even though all along it is present within all as the very existence of all, and is also the perceiving consciousness.What is in reality only Brahman; existence, consciousness and infinite, we talk of variously as the universe, as Ishwara, as Jivas, because we wrongly superimpose differences on the non-dual substratum of names and forms. Names and forms are immaterial without a substance or material cause, therefore they should be understood as non-different from that cause if we seek to know what is real.
The universe does not disappear from perception with jivan-mukti, but rather it is understood in its correct nature to be Brahman only.