Thus Spake the Divine - Maya (Illusion)

Thus Spake the Divine

Maya (Illusion)

Maya (Illusion) is a fundamental concept in Hindu philosophy, especially in the Advaita School of Vedanta. In this Chapter Poojyasri Maha Periyava brings out great clarity on this abstract concept using simple examples.

A dvaita does not prescribe to what Buddha’s religion advocated; that “Everything is a Maya (Illusion) and there is nothing called absolute truth”. Instead, Advaita says, “The entire Cosmos is a Maya, but the Brahmam, which is the source of Cosmos, is the absolute truth”.

People question, “You are saying the world is a Maya; while so many activities are happening in the world, which can be visually seen and felt, how can you call the world as a Maya?”

Such people ask this question as they think Maya is something that is a non-existent substance. Maya is not something, which is not completely non-existent. We totally dismiss the concepts of “Rabbit’s horn” or “Child of an infertile woman” etc., as something completely non-existent. But Maya is not something like that. It will exist if someone thinks that it exists. It is not similar to that of a hare’s horn. It is like a mirage. The mirage deludes our eyes as water but, in reality, there is no water at all. Even to those who are consciously aware that the mirage is not actually water, water is still visible to them. Similarly, even to sages, who are consciously aware that the world is a Maya, the world is still visible to them. But, at the same time, they are aware that it not the absolute truth.

We mistakenly become apprehensive that a rope is a snake. But the reality is that there is no snake in the rope. But the very thought that it is a snake explodes all the fear and anxiety in us, just as the real snake would generate. Though there is no real snake, it is true that we become highly terrified and perspire profusely. Similarly, though the Cosmos is not the absolute truth, the way we think that it is an absolute truth pulls us into the Maya. Once we realise that the rope is just a rope, the fear runs away from us. Similarly, the Cosmos is also an image reflected by only the Brahmam. Once we realise the truth that the source of this Cosmos is the Brahmam, which has eternal existence, the Maya vanishes.

The world is not a non-existing substance. It continues to appear as a substance until wisdom dawns on us. So long as we dream, the dream appears true and once we are awake, the dream fades away. Similarly, when we are sleeping in ignorance, the world appears true. Once we become awakened with consciousness, the same disappears. Such an intermittently appearing and disappearing Cosmos is denoted as one which is not an absolute untruth but a temporary truth.

Just like sunlight makes a sea shell glitter as silver, the Maya makes the world temporarily glitter by obscuring Brahmam.

To a sage, Maya is equivalent to only a zero. But an individual, who has not attained the state of wisdom, considers himself as a single digit number and places this zero nearby. When a zero is added to any number, it makes it 10, 20, 100 and 1,000 to the ignorant person. The Maya itself turns multidimensional and appears as true substances – true world. But a sage looks at things as they are. Like the same sugar morphs into different sweets, the same Brahmam has morphed into all these substances.

If a bitter gourd toy is prepared with sugar, a child, who is ignorant of that, would run away fearing that it would taste bitter. Though it appears as a bitter substance, it is only a sweet-tasting sugar. The sage is well-aware that the whole of the world is only the blissful Brahmam. What is bitter to us is sweet to him. Lord Krishna says, “What is black to us is white to Him and our day is His night”. The light of Brahmam appears dark to us and the dark Maya appears bright to us. One may ask how this is possible. The Maya rests on the Brahmam and receives its light as a reflection. That low level of light reaches to our low level of knowledge. Only in fairly lesser light can one see the dark scripts of a book. If you open up the book in front of the bright sunlight, one cannot see the scripts at all. Through the mean brightness of Maya, the worldly activities are visible to us, but they just disappear in the self-radiation of the sages. The meaning of the statement that a sage’s day is our night is substantiated by this simile.

This article is a snippet from the Book Thus Spake the Divine, is available online at www.giri.in and across Giri Trading Agency Private Limited, A chain of Speciality Stores dealing in all kinds of products needed in Indian Culture and Tradition.

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