Question:

Am I the cause of the world as I project the world? Or am I the source of the world?

Answer:

Cause means that which drives the effect. It is based on Time. Time and Causality run hand in hand. The past, present, and future are mere mental phenomena. All phenomena occur only in the NOW. The NOW has nothing to do with the present, either. If there is no past leading to the present, there is nothing like cause and effect. If there can be no present leading to the future, there cannot be anything like cause and effect.

If you were the cause, you would control everything and make it happen according to your requirements, but that does not occur. In your direct experience, there is nothing like total control. 

Yes, it is true, ‘You-the-Consciousness’ project the waking world, dream world, and their absence in the form of the deep sleep darkness world. But you do so as the source, not the cause. Source does not imply that there is a separate object that you are the source of. The Sun is the source of light. Light is not separate from the Sun. The Sun itself is light.

The Ocean is the source of the wave. The wave is not a separate object from the Ocean. The wave is the Ocean. The word ‘Source’ itself means that there are no two, there is no separation. Advaitam! Dive into your direct seeing and arrive at the conclusion, ‘I am not the cause of the world but the source of the world.
This means that I am the world itself. There is no separation between Me-the-Consciousness and the world’.

Don’t quit until you see yourself as the projector of the waking, dream, and sleep worlds as only then will you recognize in your own seeing that you are the source. Don’t believe me blindly. Dive into Swapna Nidra Gnyana Sadhana and prove it to yourself!

Keep walking the path of direct seeing!