What is the purpose of water in the mirage? Does it have a purpose? You see a pool of water in the desert and you think it’s real. And then you go for it and you’re picking up sand. And so it is with existence. Existence seems so valid, so real, so true. Yet who exists? Have you ever existed? Will you ever exist, what exists? Nothing.

Robert Adams (20th century American Advaita mystic)