Maya

Divine Life Society Publication: The Cosmic Mystery by Sri Swami Krishnananda

We seem to be bound; we do not know why. There seems to be a world; we do not know how. We are in the realm of Maya.

The principle of appearance is not an entity second to the Absolute, designated by us as Brahman, but constitutes the great wonder of the One becoming the many. It is not real, for it is contradicted in Brahmanubhava or Truth-Experience. It is not unreal, for we perceive and feel the diversity of life. It cannot be said to be both real and unreal, because such a proposition is unintelligible to us. It is not also neither real nor unreal – such a thing cannot even be imagined. The term 'Maya' is used in different senses, it denotes (1) the inadequacy and the incompetency of the world to explain itself without reference to Reality; (2) the inexplicability of the relation of appearance to Reality; (3) the dependence of the world on Reality or Brahman; (4) the energy that is inseparable from Isvara, from which, as the material cause, the manifestation of the world becomes possible; (5) and the dreamlike character of the world when compared with the transcendent Brahman. It is a term suggesting a mystery, which cannot be taken for reality, and yet cannot be denied altogether. We have to admit it as some Power that somehow brings about these strange phenomena of a world-existence in which we find ourselves. It is real to those who are in it, indescribable to those who try to understand it, and non-existent to those who have gone beyond it. Those who are not endowed with spiritual intuition speculate over it, but cannot solve the riddle, for the mechanism of individualistic knowledge is the psychological organ, a modification of Maya itself. As darkness cannot destroy darkness, the mind cannot know Maya.

Two powers are said to be ever busy: the Avarana-Sakti or the veiling power, and the Vikshepa-Sakti or the projecting power. The latter becomes the cause of the creation of the universe from the subtle elements of the gross cosmos. It is this power that, in its cosmic and individual aspects, becomes the medium for the manifestation of Isvara (God) and Jiva (individual), respectively. The Avarana-Sakti veils the difference between the seer and the seen inside, and the difference between Brahman and the universe outside. It is this Sakti that is the cause of Samsara. Empirically, consciousness and its object are different from each other, and the non-perception of this difference is the seed of pain. Metaphysically, the two are one, and the non-perception of this essential identity, is, again, Samsara. The empirical self appears due to a false superimposition arisen in the Witness-Self. This is the work of the projecting power. When the difference between the perceiver and the perceived becomes vivid, as soon as the veiling power is overcome, Jivahood also vanishes along with it. And likewise, as in the case of the witness and the object, Brahman appears as a modification, as it were, on account of the veiling power Of Maya that hides the distinction between the real nature of Brahman and the phenomenal universe. When this veiling power disappears through Brahmabhyasa (continuous meditation on Brahman), the nature of Brahman and the world becomes clear.

Excerpts from: Maya - The Cosmic Mystery by Sri Swami Krishnananda