Maya: The Great Deluder

Maya: The Great Deluder
by Swami Jyotirmayananda


ANYONE who has studied Vedanta philosophy or the Upanishads has encountered the term “Maya” — a term that im­plies illusion or, more specifically, cosmic illusion. The word “Maya” is used in Vedanta to help explain the relationship between God, the cre­ator, and the world of time and space. This relationship has been the center of seemingly endless philosophi­cal discussions.

Some philosophers, believing in duality, say that God is the perfect material principle known as Prakriti or Matter. By His will, God, or Brahman, the Absolute, enables Prakriti to evolve, and thus expresses Himself through the world of time and space.

How can God be perfect, the philosophers of Adwaita Vedanta (the nondualistic school of Vedanta) ar­gue, if matter exists separate from Him?

Where there is duality there is limitation. Even if God somehow modifies Himself into this world-process, is that modification real or unreal? Does God become the world? Is it a portion of Him or the whole of Him that becomes the world? Does He become involved? Does the world evolve out of Him? If the world evolves out of God, then doesn’t God become a changing reality and not the Absolute Reality? God would not be perfect if He allows himself to be modified.


The World Is an Illusory Modification of Brahman

These arguments led the great Vedantic philosopher, Shankaracharya, to evolve the wonderful theory of illusion. He said, “Brahman evolves the world through Maya, cos­mic illusion, and that illusion does not affect Brahman.”

There is the simple illustration of “snake in the rope.” When you see a rope in semi-darkness, you are sud­denly frightened and think that it is a snake. But when darkness is re­moved you realize that it is just a rope. Similarly Maya is a form of darkness that causes Brahman to ap­pear as the world-process. In other words, the world has evolved out of Brahman in an illusory manner. It is described as an illusory modification of the Absolute.

In the terms of nondualistic Vedanta, therefore, Prakriti is Maya, or illusion, and Brahman and Maya are one and the same, inseparable — the Divine Self and his power. This Maya or Prakriti is of three types cor­responding to the three gunas: satwic, rajasic, and tamasic. (Sattwa is the principle of harmony, rajas is the principle of activity or externalization, and tamasic the principle of inertia, obscurity.)

Through sattwa-predominating Prakriti, Brahman appears as Ishwara, the Sanskrit term for the Creator. Through rajas-predominating Prakriti, Brahman appears as the jivas, or individual souls. Since rajas oc­curs in infinitely varying degrees, the jivas are of countless number. Fi­nally, through mas-predominating Prakriti, Brahman appears as the world of matter. Therefore, in the final analysis, Ishwara or God, as well as the jivas or individual souls, as well as the entire material world are noth­ing but Brahman reflecting through Maya.

As a beginner on the path of mysticism you are aware of a world full of trouble, struggle, terror, suc­cess and failure, and endless changes — a world in which people, fettered by karmas, are evolving through re­peated births and deaths. But when you advance in the spiritual process you begin to see a world that is infused by Divine Presence. The Di­vine Hand is behind everything. As you turn your steps further towards saintliness, intuition shines forth in your heart and the world disappears.

When you attain Enlightenment, you look at life through intuitive vi­sion and the world is no longer seen. You see eternity revealing itself through every name and form. Names and forms disappear and Brah­man alone is experienced. That is the meaning of transcending or over­coming Maya.


Two Types of Creation

Vedantic scriptures speak of two types of creation: God’s creation and individual’s creation. As we have said, through sattwa, Brahman appears as Ishwara and “creates” the world. This is God’s creation, or Ishwara srishti. Through rajas, Brahman reflects in countless souls called jivas, who, over­powered by ignorance, create egois­tic values. This is the individual’s creation, or jiva srishti. Every person superimposes his mental concepts on the objects of the world, and makes egoistic value judgements about them.

If the individual soul were to overcome ignorance, it would com­mune with God, Ishwara. It would see that God’s creation through sattwa is most wonderful. Further, it would become one with Brahman, because Brahman is the reality behind God.

If you strip from your mind the egoistic creation and then look at the world, you will see it as a grand miracle. Look within yourself and observe the mechanism of your own body. Every atom holds within itself mysteries beyond human compre­hension. See how mysteriously mil­lions and millions of cells throb with life, allowing yourwhole body to func­tion with efficiency. See how mysteri­ously your thoughts operate through your brain. All these have been fashioned by that same Divine Hand that also fashioned the surging ocean, mountains, sun, moon, and seasons. Look at the world after you have stripped away the veil of egoistic val­ues and you will find a most miracu­lous and thrilling world.

That is why Lord Jesus, looking at the lilies blooming in the garden, said, “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” When you develop a vision that transcends ego, you begin to see the world as a Divine Miracle.

Ramakrishna Paramhamsa told an interesting parable that illustrates how every person looks at the world in his own way. A man, while crossing a road in semi-darkness, fell down and became unconscious. When people passed by, each gave a differ­ent opinion about that man’s condi­tion. A group of thieves passed by and said, “Look, he didn’t succeed in carrying all the booty and, therefore, he has stumbled upon the road.” A drunkard passed by and said, “He is so drunk that he appears to be dead.” A more normal person passed by and said, “Well, he must be suffering from some type of sickness.” And then a great devotee of God passed by and said, “Look, this man excels me. In his ecstasy he just ignores the whole world and lies there on the road.”

The person is one, but different minds look at him in different ways, creating different mental impres­sions. Similarly, each object of the world exists with one Divine mean­ing, but the same object that creates one type of impression in one per­son will create a different impression in another person.

Consider another example: a piece of gold. When it is placed be­fore those who are interested in gold, it will create a sparkle in their eyes. Placed before people with criminal tendencies, it will arouse their de­sires to steal it, by hook or by crook. Before those who are dispassionate, men of God, gold is the same as any other stone and, therefore, it does not mean anything. So the same ob­ject creates different impressions in different minds.

These are examples of jiva srishti, the individual soul’s creation. It is this creation that causes bondage. And the task before the individual is to harmonize himself with the cre­ator to such an extent that his egois­tic values are transcended. When the individual understands that he is not imprisoned by his ego-evolved con­cepts, he experiences an amazing internal awareness of expansion at all times and he begins to see a differ­ent type of world: a world that is ever new and thrilling in spite of the fact that the body changes and ages, in spite of gain and loss in daily life.

He acquires a vision that sees the Divine Hand behind all and devel­ops faith in God that is unflinching, unwavering. With further advance­ment, he eventually lifts the veil of еgо and realizes his oneness with God.

This vertical movement toward God which lifts one above the hori­zontal plane of ego is the mystic symbolism behind the cross. It means crucifixion of ego-consciousness and communion with the Divine Self.


Find Brahman Behind All Names and Forms

In the teachings of the Upanishads, Brahman, or God, is described as Sat-Chit-Ananda, (Exist­ence, Knowledge and Bliss). The nature of God is Absolute Existence — Existence that is undeniable, that cannot be negated. You can negate everything but you cannot negate yourself. In other words, you cannot negate the negator. The unnegatable Brahman, Absolute Existence or Sat, is behind everything in this world.

That Existence is of the nature of Consciousness; it is not inert. And that conscious principle, Chit, is the second aspect of Brahman. There has to be a conscious principle in order to recognize the fact that Existence exists. If the world were inert there would be no validity in Existence.

The third aspect of Brahman is Ananda, Absolute Bliss. That Bliss is the innermost basis of the world. And the basic urge in human personality is to know that Bliss: to be happy, to be free of pain and to experience unlimited joy. All other things are secondary. Joy in its pure nature is Infinite Brahman, the Absolute. The innermost reality in every human being is Ananda, Bliss.

Sat-Chit-Ananda, the triple aspect of Brahman, is veiled by name and form. Objects of this world have names and forms. When you strip them of names and forms you recog­nize Brahman as the reality behind them. However, as long as the mind is not enlightened it sees the names and forms and becomes deluded. The principle that causes such delu­sion is Maya.


Maya: The Great Deluder

Maya is described as the great deluder. Every religious system re­fers to the “temptations” of the world. In reciting the Lord’s Prayer, Chris­tians pray, “Lead us not into tempta­tion, but deliver us from evil.” You may ask, “Why, then, did God create temptation?” The answer is that the world becomes tempting and causes deviation only because you view the world in the wrong way. Instead of recognizing God, you begin to go after, or be tempted by, names and forms. It is Maya which causes that temptation, that bondage. Libera­tion consists in lifting the veil of Maya and overcoming it.

Maya operates through the im­pressions of attachment and hatred in the mind. If your mind is filled with such impressions, your reason will operate in a deluded manner. If impressions of attachment and ha­tred are reduced, your reason will operate more in harmony with Cos­mic Will.

We can understand more about Maya through some illustrations. This parable by Ramakrishna Paramhamsa illustrates how Maya operates through the human mind and its subtle desires:

Once there were three fisher-women returning from the shores. It was a dark, cloudy night, and too late for them to travel all the way home. So they decided to spend the night wherever they could find shelter. They encountered a gardener, who invited them to sleep in his hut. To be gracious to the women, the gar­dener decorated the hut with many wonderful, fragrant flowers, includ­ing jasmine and rose.

During the night, the fisher- women began to complain: “There is such a stench. These flowers smell so much that we cannot sleep. What can we do?” One of them advised, “Let’s put the fish net on our nostrils, and sprinkle a little water on it. Soon we can have the familiar fragrance of the fish and we will be able to sleep.” And so they followed her advice and slept soundly and comfortably.

The subtle desires (vasanas) in the unconscious are like a fish net. Every individual soul has that net on his nose. Everyone is looking at the world through the fish net created by egoistic illusion. Although the world is like a grand garden and there are Divine flowers everywhere, the mind is not comfortable with this world. A person feels comfortable only when he is looking through the net of those subtle desires. He feels delighted only when those subtle desires are being fulfilled. He likes cer­tain objects or dislikes them accord­ing to the subtle desires in the un­conscious.

Here is another illustration about the workings of Maya. It was early in the morning, and the sun had not yet risen. The light was dim, and a trav­eler was approaching a village. As he came closer he saw a terrible dog, with its mouth open, the red tongue out. The traveler became frightened and said, “What am I to do? The dog has looked at me and I cannot es­cape.”

He shivered in fear, but, as he waited a little, he recognized that it was just a statue of a dog and not a real dog. The moment he recognized that it was a statue, just stone, the fear of the dog vanished.

Similarly, as long as you recog­nize the world according to egoistic illusions, there is fear. There is a world that gives birth and death, a world that causes many difficult ex­periences in human life. But the mo­ment you remove egoistic illusion you realize this is a Divine world, a world of infinite beauty and majesty.

According to another humorous illustration about the workings of Maya, two drunk friends were leav­ing a club during the dark hours of the night. They were so drunk that their main problem was just to find a room in which to relax. They could not move any further. Soon they found a deserted house and got in­side. Since there was only one bed, they lay down next to each other. One of them said, “Now, we have found a wonderful place.” But the other one, being drunk, heard the voice as if it was coming from a distance, and replied, “But I’ve found someone near me.” And the other one said, “I’ve also found that there is someone near me. Let us push the strangers out.” They began fighting, trying to get rid of the strangers, not realizing they were fighting with each other. Drunkenness had caused that illusion. After their drunkenness had gone, however, they looked at each other and saws what they had done. They laughed and felt ashamed of their foolishness.

With philosophical analysis it is seen that whenever people fight they are fighting within themselves. They are fighting with the Self. The inner­most reality behind all is the Univer­sal Self. If that Self were understood, there would be no room for anger or hate towards anyone. People don’t realize that they are involved in the illusions of their own minds. When a person tries to assert himself over others, or goes after others with hate and violence, feeling that others are the source of his troubles, he does not understand that trouble does not come from without — it is expressing itself from within. In that drunken­ness of illusion people continue to fight and quarrel from life to life until there comes a time when they realize that all is the Self. And then they laugh at all those conditions of ignorance...just as those two drunk­ards in the story laughed at how they had fought. Such is Maya.


The Relativity of Time and Space

Much prior to Einstein the Vedantic philosophers developed the concept that the world is relative, and time and space are not realities. They compared the world to a dream. In dream you may experience the passage of many days or months in only a short time. Although you may dream for only a little while in one small corner of your room, you may experience an illusory vastness of time and space in that dream. In the same manner, say Vedantins, this waking world of time and space is also seen as illusory when viewed from a higher perspective.

There is a story from Yoga Vasistha which elegantly describes Maya as the relativity of time and space It is the story about King Padma and his Queen, Lila.

Lila was very devoted to her husband. She prayed to Goddess Saraswati, asking, “Let my husband be immortal, may he never die.” Goddess Saraswati explained to her that she could ask for anything ex­cept immortality, because everyone must die. Then Lila thought of an­other boon that would be equal to immortality and said, “When my husband dies, let his spirit remain in my room.” Somehow she thought that if the spirit did not leave the room, there would be some form of association.

The Goddess said: “Yes, it is granted, and I also grant you an­other boon: Whenever you are per­plexed and need Me, just think of Me and I will come to you.”

When the King died at the age of fifty, Lila, the Queen, was immersed in grief. Suddenly, a celestial voice told her, ‘Do not grieve. According to the boon given to you, your husband’s spirit is right there in your own room; it has not gone. Do not dispose of the dead body. In the course of time that spirit will go back to the body and revive it.” When Lila heard this she felt consoled.

After waiting awhile, Lila looked around every corner of the room but could not find her husband’s spirit. There seemed to be no way she could communicate with it. Again she be­came upset and invoked the pres­ence of Goddess Saraswati. When the Goddess appeared, Lila said, “I have searched but I do no see my husband.” The Goddess replied, “There is a way you can see him. In this world there are various planes, and every plane has its own space and time. It is impossible for human mind to understand how many planes there are. They are like layers in a plantain stem. Therefore, within your room there is another plane of time and space where your husband has gone.” Lila replied, “I can’t believe it unless I see it.” Then Goddess Saraswati taught her the art of tran­scending the world, and guided her through a mystic entrance into the subtle world.

There Lila found another world, a world as vast as the world she had originally known. In that world she found her husband as a sixteen year old prince whose name was Viduratha. The kingdom had been given to him when his father retired to the forest for prayers and medita­tion. Lila was surprised and she asked, “How is it possible that, even though only one hour has elapsed since my husband’s death, I can see him as a sixteen year old youth ruling this country?” And Saraswati answered, “If you knew more about the mystery of the world you would be even more surprised.”

“In your previous birth, which occurred in a different time and space, you died only seven days ago. You and your husband were a brahmin couple. In that embodiment you of­fered prayers to me and I gave you a boon. According to that boon, at the time of death the spirits remained in your room in the world of that brahmin couple. Although only seven days had passed in the world of the brahmin couple, fifty years had elapsed in your world as Lila and Padma. Similarly, while only one hour has passed in your world as Padma and Lila, 16 years have passed in the world of Viduratha.”

Amazed at hearing this, Lila again wanted to see what was hap­pening in her husband’s present world. And again Saraswati brought her to that plane of time and space. By this time the king was seventy years old and engaged in a terrible battle in which he was killed. After his death, the spirit of the king came back and revived the dead body in Lila’s room.

This vast story, which I have only briefly summarized, dramatically conveys the Vedantic idea of a “world within the world.” The world we ex­perience is not the finality of exist­ence. It is only a layer in a vast world of Maya. We live in a particular layer, but there are layers within the layer. Time and space are relative, and this relativity is an aspect of Maya.


How to Overcome Maya

The following are three impor­tant methods for overcoming Maya:

1. Promote satsanga (good association). Turn to those Saints and Sages who have studied the scrip­tures, and who live elevated lives which promote uplifting association.

2. Simplify your life. Do not live a life of increasing possessions and entanglements. Give greater value to spiritual wealth and less value to material wealth. Contentment is greater than wealth. Inner qualities are greater than any material attain­ment.

3. Perform selfless service (seva). Develop a vision of worshipping God in your daily deeds. Promote a spirit of detachment and devotion, with the understanding that you are work­ing not for yourself or others but for God’s pleasure. Develop the spirit of karma yoga, in which pleasing God is the basis behind all actions. Surren­der to God with an inner sense of relaxation and repose, understand­ing that it is the Divine Hand that sustains you.

As you follow these guidelines increase your devotion to God through japa (repetition of the Di­vine Name), prayer, meditation and discipline. As the pressure of attach­ment and hatred decreases, you will begin to recognize the Divine Hand of God.

According to the Upanishads, the human mind (antahkarana) is com­pared to a mirror. This mirror of the mind is subject to the following three defects:

1. Mala: gross impurities of the mind such as anger, hate, and greed. These are like dust particles that have to be wiped off the mirror. Mala is removed by the practice of karma yoga.


2. Vikshepa: distraction of the mind. Suppose the mirror has no dust, but the hand that holds the mirror shakes and, therefore, you cannot see yourself. That shakiness caused by distraction of the mind is removed by devout meditation on the Divine Self or on Saints or any object that has a saintly association. Through such meditation you purify your mind and it becomes still.

3. Avidya: ignorance. Suppose that the dust has been wiped off the mirror and the hand that holds it does not shake, but a thin veil lies in front of your eyes and blocks your vision so that you still cannot see correctly. Avidya, this obscuring veil, is removed through intuitional Real­ization. It is overcome when there is a profound internal communion with the Divine Self and you realize, “I am one with God.” You discover that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you and declare, as Jesus declared, “I and the Father in Heaven are One.”


The Upanishads declare ‘THOU ART THAT.” You are not the body, you are not the mind, you are not the world in which you are involved. All these are illusion. The world exists like a dream. Just as you have to wake up from dream, you have to wake up from the world and realize that you are Brahman.

The unity of Jiva with Ishwara — the individual with God — and the awareness that both are essentially the same Brahman is the only true project before every individual. Through that realization of unity, Maya is removed and overcome. May God bless you with the removal of Maya.

“International Yoga Guide” Vol. 30, NO. 7, March 1993



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