Plato's world of sense is not an illusion created by the senses but is reality of a much lower order than the Ideas. To the Vedanta, the world is ishvara-srishti, a creation of God, and is vyavaharika-satta or empirical reality, which has the value of practical workability. The world is not an illusion created by the mind of man as some extreme subjectivists hold, but is a reality co-existent with the body of the Virat, the grossest appearance of the Creative Consciousness. The Vedanta makes a distinction between cosmic creation and individual imagination, technically termed ishvara-srishti and jiva-srishti. It is the imagination of the individual that is the cause of its bondage and not the mere existence of the universe as an object of perception. To the Vedanta, the world and the individual are co-relative realities which arise simultaneously and also vanish simultaneously in the realisation of the Absolute. The two do not have between them the relation of the superior and the inferior or of cause and effect. The individual is a part of the universe and it is only the imaginations of the former that can be called illusions, not the presence of the latter.

Plato posits another principle, namely, matter, different from the Ideas, which forms the appearances constituting phenomenal experience. By itself matter or the sense-world is qualityless, nothing; it derives values from the reality of the Ideas which give form and value to it. To the Vedanta, the phenomenal world consists of nama-rupa, names and forms, and has by itself no other quality, no essence or substantiality other than satchidananda, or existence-knowledge-bliss, which is the threefold constitutive essence and sole reality underlying all things. The world is dependent on Brahman, and independently the world is nothing. Here Plato and the Vedanta are one.

The diversity of the material world is, according to Plato, the dissipated appearance of the eternal Ideas which range beyond sense and opinion. The phenomenal world is real to the extent it is informed by the Ideas. Like the prakriti of the Samkhya, Plato's matter is a realm of unconscious activity and blind causality, which is raised to the status of being guided by a conscious purpose and having an intelligent teleological movement by the interference of the rational Ideas which act here in a manner akin to that of the purushas of the Samkhya. But the Samkhya holds that matter is an eternal entity, while the matter of Plato is valueless without the eternal informing Ideas. What is real is consciousness and the degree to which consciousness manifests itself in the appearances determines the degree of reality put on by the appearances.

Plato appears to feel that matter is an unwilling self of the Ideas. In the philosophy of the Vedanta, matter is not an entity isolated from the realm of eternity but is merely an appearance of the Eternal through space, time and causation. The activities of the material world are all consciously directed towards the fulfilment of the cosmic purpose of Self-realisation. Matter is not an unwilling self but a willing cooperator in the grand scheme of the cosmos. Matter appears to be an impediment when the Spirit is forgotten, but when one consciously and deliberately puts forth efforts towards the realisation of the Spirit in one's own self, one would discover that the material universe becomes a stepping stone in the process of this grand ascent. One would however be inclined to say that Plato's system smacks of dualism, a division between the Ideal world and the real world, between the eternal and the temporal, though it is to be accepted that his system is a perfectly spiritual one. Ardent followers of Plato, however, would feel that his system is non-dualistic on account of his insistence on the sole reality of the Idea of the Good. But this is rather an interpretation than a discovery. All depends upon how much reality Plato credited to his phenomenal world of appearances.

In his cosmology, Plato comes nearer to the Nyaya and the Vaiseshika philosophies than the other schools. His Demiurge merely fashions a world out of matter and mind which exist already. The Demiurge is not the actual creator of the world, but an architect like the God of the Nyaya and the Vaiseshika, an extra-cosmic being needed just to bring the existing material together to form the world. The ideas which exist as the contents of the creative mind of the God of Plato may be compared with the subtle variegated modes manifest in the Hiranyagarbha of the Vedanta. But Hiranyagarbha is not merely a fashioner of the material existing as the subtle universe, but this universe constitutes the very body of Hiranyagarbha. Sometimes Plato calls these Ideas "That which is", the only reality. But as long as these Ideas reveal plurality in them the attribution of absolute reality to them is hardly tenable. The Hiranyagarbha of the Vedanta is not the ultimate reality but a cosmic principle which explains the unity underlying the diversified universe but itself falls under the relative categories of phenomenal existence. Further, Plato declares the dynamic character of the Ideas, their activity and creativity, which makes it clear that they are far from being the unchangeable eternal.

Plato's Demiurge creates a World-Soul which imparts to the universe the character of an organism. The World-Body came into being after the pattern of the image of the Ideas which impress their stamp on the World-Soul. All these bear striking resemblances to the threefold appearance of the Creator as Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat in the Vedanta. It is, however, curious that the World-Soul of Plato is stigmatised as an evil principle, though Plato shrinks from emphasising this point too much and would easily assign the seeds of imperfection to man himself.

Plato holds that knowledge is not a fresh acquisition of any new thing but a reminiscence, an anamnesis, of a previous knowledge. Sensation is not the source of knowledge; sensation merely incites the rational part of the soul to function as knowledge which is hidden in it. The soul has knowledge in it even before it comes in contact with objects through sense. It is the view of Plato that the soul has forgotten its original essential nature of the knowledge of Ideas and is only reminded of this knowledge when it contacts the copies of these Ideas in the world of sense. Knowledge is a rediscovery of what is present within but has been forgotten on account of the soul's encasement in material body. When the lower nature is overcome, the soul rediscovers its past glory of true inborn knowledge in a disembodied state. Plato thus establishes the pre-existence of the soul and its immortality.

The Vedanta holds in agreement with Plato that there is a magazine of knowledge and power within us already. We have only to discover and realise it through deep meditation, and, metaphysically, it accepts that all that we know here is merely an imperfect representation of the Absolute. But it would not accept that in sense-perception there is any conscious recognition of the super-sensuous Reality. The embodied soul is not reminded of the metempirical entities in its empirical perception; what it sees is merely a presentation of material bodies which it confuses with Reality. There is no remembrance whatsoever of the Eternal in sense-perception, though metaphysically it is true that all empirical urge is a distorted shadow of one's love for the Eternal.

Plato says that the perception of sensuous beauty is an indication of the aspiration of the soul for Immortal Being. A memory of the Ideal Beauty is aroused in the soul in sense-love. The Vedanta, too, recognises the significance of sense-love in life and it can become a step towards the Eternal, when the process is consciously directed. But sensuous beauty is a distorted and untrustworthy shadow of Divine Being. It is true that the reality of the Divine is reflected in all things; but what attracts the embodied soul in sensuous beauty is not the Divine element but the possibility of a satisfaction of the imperfect side of its nature through finding and contacting its counterpart in the beautiful object. Beauty, as such, is never seen; only the objectification of desire is seen in the beloved objects. It is what the Vedanta calls jiva srishti that creates beauty in things; but Plato makes it a part of ishvara-srishti or extramental reality. There cannot be the perception of beauty without subject-object-relationship, and in Eternal Being all relations are merged in unity. Yes; the Supreme Being is present in all things as their sole reality, but it is not what is beheld in sense-perception, though it is to be conceded that any perception would be impossible but for this reality behind things. Beauty is the result of the interaction of the modes of the incompleteness of human experience and their corresponding counterparts, which brings about an experience of equilibrium, filledness, an all-possessing feeling of repose, a sense of symmetry, rhythm, harmony, system, order and unity, which are ultimately the characteristics of the Absolute, but the Absolute is not 'consciously' experienced in aesthetic enjoyment, for here the characteristics of the Absolute are objectified and thus robbed of their true value, for the Absolute is realised in non-objective experience alone. Beauty is the reflection of the Absolute in sense-experience when the latter reveals a harmony caused by the contact of the subject with its counter-correlative; but this experience cannot lead to a realisation of the Absolute unless one is conscious of what is happening really when there is a perception of beauty, and one deliberately converts it into a stepping stone in the higher ascent.