If the knower knows this, the mind is knowledgeable; if the knower doesn't know this, the mind is ignorant.

Examples of how these concepts are taught from relative reality include mother-of-pearl resembling silver, or a rope resembling a snake. In the former, latent greed is triggered because one thinks it is silver that glitters. But it turns out to be sunlight shining on the mother-of-pearl abalone shell.

In the case of a snake instead of a rope, a basic fear is present, and a snake is superimposed on a source rope. Those with a neutral mind will simply know what they see (vyāvahārika satya or īśvara reality) and will experience no further anxiety. Those with a subjective vision (prātibhāsika satya or jīva reality) will repeatedly fall into vivarta, into the apparent changes of an emotional mind.

A better example is the element air, which, in a hot environment like a desert, can produce a mirage (or fata morgana) in the mind of the knower, through vibrations in the air, along with subjective experience due to, for example, desires like thirst or the need for cooling. The mirage turns out not to be real. Similarly, after knowledge has done its work, all phenomena turn out not to be real, but material reflections of myself, infinite consciousness.

A hologram is a beautiful modern example. What is presented to our senses seems very real. Knowing that it is a hologram frees us from the representation.

As is the case with all methodologies, including Vedānta, all examples fall short of expressing the truth. This is how you can understand vivarta upādāna kāraṇa in the light of truth:

Besides vyāvahārika and prātibhāsika, the apparent, relative levels of reality, there is only one real level of reality, namely pāramārthika satyam. This is the cause. Essentially, you see consciousness in every appearance and change of appearance, because you know it (knowledge). The change (pariṇāma) of consciousness into matter is not real but a spinning illusion (vivarta).

This cause (the substrate of consciousness) and the effect (every visible or invisible object) belong to different orders of reality. One is real, the other dependently real (mithyā). This is because the effect is not a real effect at all, but in fact simply remains the original. In ignorance, we base our (relative) truths on sense perception and its derivatives. The challenge for self-realization, then, is not to truly engage with what the senses suggest. This is difficult for a living being with senses and feelings, etc. But it is the knowledge of the original (yourself) that is sufficient to bring freedom.

Brahman is vivarta upādāna kāraṇa, because brahman consciousness seems to assume the names, forms, and functions in which we live. But it is not true change. It is an illusion, vivarta. First, everything remains dependent on consciousness; second, all objects are finite and impermanent, while the cause remains infinitely the same.

Consider deep sleep, anesthesia, or coma. Consciousness is fully present, but without experiences. The objects have "disappeared" back into the self as māyā-prakṛti.

A good example is māyā-īśvara, which, like a spider (ūrṇanābhi), uses a potential web of threads (ūrṇāni) in its abdomen (literally, navel, nābhi) to spin a web. Certain spiders spread their webs from their own bodies and "eat" (absorb) them back into their bodies when needed. Similarly, the god spins an apparent matrix within himself, from himself.

This example is used to express the transition from unmanifested māyā to manifested īśvara. But in reality, the chain of changes cit -> māyā -> īśvara is apparent (vivarta).

Pure knowledge or intelligence is called the efficient cause (nimitta kāraṇa) of consciousness, which seemingly plays a game with itself. So there is an intelligent knowledge component (nimitta) and a material-energetic component (upādāṇa), but both are vivarta, producing apparent changes, not real ones.

Like a dream that turns out not to be real. This is why one of the meanings of vivarta is "whirlpool." It expresses the dizzying saṁsāra, the causal chain of death and birth. Consciousness apparently assumes material forms in infinite multiplicity on the basis of infinitely pure knowledge, while consciousness itself (I!) remains unchanged.

So I am the cause of matter, but I change into matter in an ontological relationship that is satya-mithyā (independent-dependent, imperishable-impermanent, and unchanging-changing). In the laws of īśvara's creation (īśvara sṛṣṭi), pariṇāmi upādāṇa kāraṇa is the case. This means that in empirical reality (vyāvahārika) every form changes into a new form (pariṇāma), without any value judgment, but according to dharmic, consistent laws.

Examples of pariṇāmi upādāṇa kāraṇa are a young body growing old. Milk being churned into butter. These are irreversible processes. Even an atom detonated does not return to its compressed energy form.

But at the true (only in reality) level of reality (pāramārthika, that which is beyond goals, arthas, and effects, kāryas), brahman has never changed. Consciousness, the only reality, is infinitely peaceful, still, and free. No nuclear force or Kali Yuga can change that.