You are the water and the objects are the bubbles. They cannot exist apart from the water, but they are not quite the same as the water.

Devotee:  Inquiring who the ‘I’ is, I cannot hold it for any length of time. Secondly, I have no interest in the environment, but yet I have hopes that I shall find some interest in life.

Ramana Maharishi:  If there are no interests it is good.

(The interpreter points out that the questioner hopes to find some interest in life).

Ramana Maharishi:  That means there are those vasanas. A dreamer dreams a dream. He sees the dream world with pleasures, pains. etc. But he wakes up and then loses all interest in the dream world. So it is with the waking world also. Just as the dream-world, being only a part of yourself and not different from you, ceases to interest you, so also the present world would cease to interest you if you awake from this waking dream (samsara) and realise that it is a part of your Self, and not an objective reality. Because you think that you are apart from the objects around you, you desire a thing. But if you understand that the thing was only a thought-form you would no longer desire it. All things are like bubbles on water. You are the water and the objects are the bubbles. They cannot exist apart from the water, but they are not quite the same as the water.