Bhagavan; Dont try to conquer maya

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All About Maya

>From Conscious Immortality

 

Q: What is illusion?

M: Find out to whom the illusion occurs and it will vanish. It is

foolish to talk about it, for it is outside us and unknown, whereas

the seeker is inside and to be known. Find out the immediate and

intimate instead of what is distant and unknown.

Q: `Brahman is real, world is illusion,' is Sankara's stock phrase.

Others say the world is real. Which is true?

M: Both. They refer to different stages of development. The aspirant

starts with the definition that the Real always exists, and then

eliminates the world as unreal because it is changing, and hence

cannot be the Real. Ultimately he reaches the Self and there finds

unity. Then that which was originally rejected as being unreal, is

found to be part of the unity. Being absorbed in the Reality, the

world is also real. In realization there is only existence, and

nothing but that.

Vedantins say maya's manifestation is the display of the cosmos on

pure Consciousness like images in a mirror. Just as the images cannot

remain in the absence of a mirror, so the world cannot have an

independent existence. Sri Sankara says that the Absolute is without

attributes. What is the difference? Both agree that the display is

unreal.

 

There is no difference between matter and spirit. Modern science

admits that all matter is energy. Energy is shakti. Therefore all are

resolved into Siva and shakti, i.e. Self and mind. The bodies are mere

appearances. There is no reality in them as such.

 

Regarding maya, the idea that phenomena are unreal in every sense is

to be repudiated, but that alone which is permanent and does not

change is worth the name of reality. The world is not real, apart from

the hidden reality. Hence it is really the spiritual reality itself in

another way. Ananda lives in every being.

Q: How to get rid of maya?

M: Do not try to conquer maya. Be in your real state and maya will go

away of its own accord. If you attempt to conquer it, it will lead you

into many difficulties.

 

BE! If you get any other extraneous thoughts, find out who gets them.

But whether or not you think that you are the real Self, you are

always That. There is so much worry, so many yoga techniques for such

a simple patent thing as Self-realization! Why? You are the real Self:

how can you be different from it?

Q: You endorse the teaching of maya, but I cannot reconcile my feeling

of this chair's reality with your assertion of its unreality.

M The root of your difficulty lies in the confused mingling of two

separate ideas into one: the `I' and the `body'. When you are aware of

the chair, it is the thought subsequent to the primal one, `I am the

body.' `I am the body' is the substratum of all your thoughts of world

experience. It arises first, only then can the others follow.

That is why when it fails to arise - as in deep sleep - the world

experience also fails to enter your consciousness. Now of these two

ideas, the `I' thought is the enduring one, and the body-thought is a

transient one. This is shown by dreams where you still have the sense

of `I' but no awareness of the physical body. Thus all your bodily

experiences and experiences of the world which are linked to them, are

nothing other that what enters your mind. This is what I mean when I

say that the mind is nothing but thoughts. The `I' is the only real

Being because it is the only durable one. Find it after stopping the

thoughts.

Q: Why does maya become active?

M: How can this question arise? You are yourself within its fold. Are

you standing apart from that universal activity in order to ask this

question? The same power is raising this doubt in order that all

doubts may finally cease. Maya is only Iswara shakti or the activity

of reality.

Q: We are ignorant. Tell us the way to cross the ocean of illusion!

Editors note: The Maharshi did not reply. Half and hour later the

person repeated his question.

M: You say that you know you are ignorant. Indeed you are the knower

of all! And you you say that you dont not know.

Q: What is existence?

M: It is subject to birth and decay in order to remind us that it is

not our true state.

The universe exists writhin the Self. Therefore it is real, but only

because it obtains its reality from the Self. We call it unreal,

however, to indicate its changing appearance and transient form,

whereas we call the

Self real because it is changeless. After realization the body and all

else does not appear different from the Self.

 

Brahman: The supreme being.The Absolute of Hinduism.

Ishwara: The Supreme personal God of Hinduism.

Shakti: Power; the force, energy or activity of the divine; the divine

aspect is usually repre