Maya

[Guest guest]

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA ON THE VEDAS AND UPANISHADS

By Sister Gayatriprana

part 65

Earlier postings can be seen at

http://www.vivekananda.btinternet.co.uk/veda.htm

 

 

4. The Highest Point of Vedanta Is Shankara's Idea of Maya

 

Vedanta and modern science both posit a self-evolving cause. In itself are

all the causes. Take, for example, a potter shaping a pot. The potter is the

primal cause, the clay the material cause, and the wheel the instrumental

cause; but the Atman is all three. Atman is cause and manifestation too. The

Vedantist says the universe is not real, it is only apparent. Nature is God

seen through nescience. The pantheists say God has become nature or this

world; the Advaitists affirm that God is appearing as this world, but It is

not this world. (8)

 

The one sect of Advaitists that you see in modern India is composed of the

followers of Shankara. According to Shankara, God is both the material and

the efficient cause through maya, but not in reality. God has not become

this universe; but the universe is not, and God is. This is one of the

highest points to understand of Advaita Vedanta, the idea of maya. (9)

 

The work of the Upanishads seems to have ended at the point [of merging the

two advancing lines of impersonal God and the impersonal Person]; the next

was taken up by the philosophers. The framework was given them by the

Upanishads, and they had to fill in the details. So many questions would

naturally arise. Taking for granted that there is but one impersonal

Principle which is manifesting Itself in all these manifold forms, how it is

that the One becomes the many? It is another way of putting the same old

question, which in its crude form comes into the human heart as the inquiry

into the cause of evil, and so forth. Why does evil exist in the world and

what is its cause? But the same question has now become refined, abstracted.

No more is it asked from the platform of the senses why we are unhappy, but

from the platform of philosophy. How is it that this one Principle becomes

manifold? And the answer,... the best answer that India produced is the

theory of maya which says that It really has not become manifold, that It

really has not lost any of its real nature. Manifoldness is only apparent.

Humans are only apparently persons, but in reality they are the impersonal

Being. God is a person only apparently, but really It is the impersonal

Being. (10)

 

The theory of maya is as old as the Rig Samhita. (11)

 

The idea of maya which forms, as it were, one of the basic doctrines of the

Advaita Vedanta is, in its germs, found even in the Samhitas, and in reality

all the ideas which are developed in the Upanishads are found already in the

Samhitas in some form or other. Most of you are by this time familiar with

the idea of maya and know that it is sometimes erroneously explained as

illusion, so that when the universe is said to be maya, that also has to be

explained as being illusion. The translation of the word is neither happy

nor correct. Maya is not a theory; it is simply a statement of facts about

the universe as it exists; and to understand maya we must go back to the

Samhitas and begin with the conception in the germ. (12)

 

The word maya is used, though incorrectly, to denote illusion or delusion,

or some such thing. But the theory of maya forms one of the pillars upon

which the Vedanta rests; it is, therefore, necessary that it should be

properly understood. I ask a little patience of you, for there is a great

danger of its being misunderstood. The oldest idea of maya that we find in

Vedic literature is the sense of delusion; but then [at that time] the real

theory had not been reached. We find such passages as: "Indra, through his

maya assumed the form of Guru." [brih. Up., 2.5.19] Here it is true that the

word maya means something like magic, and we find various other passages

always taking the same meaning. The word maya then dropped out of sight

altogether. But in the meantime the idea was developing. Later the question

was raised: " Why can't we know this secret of the universe?' And the answer

given was very significant: "Because we talk in vain and because we are

satisfied with the things of the senses, and because we are running after

desires; therefore, we cover the reality with a mist." Here the word maya is

not used at all, but we get the idea that the cause of our ignorance is a

kind of mist that has come between us and the Truth. Much later on, in one

of the latest Upanishads, we find the word maya reappearing, but this time a

transformation has taken place in it, and a mass of new meaning has attached

itself to the word. Theories had been propounded and repeated, other had

been taken up, until at last the idea of maya became fixed. We read in the

Swetashwatara Upanisad, "Know nature to be maya, and the ruler of this maya

is the Lord himself." [4.10] (13)

 

The Swetashwatara Upanisad contains the word maya which developed out of

prakriti. I hold that Upanisad to be at least older than Buddhism. (14)

 

Coming to our philosophers, we find that this word maya has been manipulated

in various fashions, until we come to the great Shankaracharya. The theory

of maya was manipulates a little by the Buddhists, too, but in the hands of

the Buddhists it became very much like what we call idealism, and that is

the meaning that is now generally given to the word maya. When the Hindu

says that the world is maya, at once people get the idea that the world is

an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the

Buddhist philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did

not believe in an external world at all. But the maya of the Vedanta, in its

last developed form, is neither idealism nor realism, nor is it a theory. It

is a simple statement of facts - what we are and what we see around us.(15)

 

 

Cross reference to:

 

Rig Veda, 1.164.46

 

Cha. Up., 3.14.1

 

6.2.3

 

Npt. Up., 1.6

[Guest guest]

K. Sadananda Ji wrote:

>>>Shreeman Chari did discuss the sloka you are referring to and showed

that one has to examine the whole sloka not that statement by itself

and also the context the statement occurs. He showed that from that

perspective the meaning does not reflect the maaya that we are

familiar in advaitic tradition. There is no question of course that

the statement in isolation does indeed reflect the meaning of maaya

and Shreeman Chari did mention that too.

 

I'm very interested and keen to know about how he could show that. As I

understand it, the mantra can only be accepted as an account of Maya, which

we may also call Avyakrita, Avyakta or Akshara (I mean the akshara of the

15th chapter of Gita, and of the statement "aksharAt parataH paraH, and not

akshara brahman). The mantra cannot denote Brahman, as we know clearly that

He is Sat, thus denying Sat (Pure existence) would be a self-contradictory

statement for the Vedas, as the Vedas themselves say "satyam jnaanam anantam

brahma" (Brahman is Pure Existence, Pure Consciousness and endless or

eternal). It cannot denote the world, as we know that it is asat

(non-existent), in that case what is left? The avyAkr^ita mAyA.

However, talking about the context, I would like to point out that it is the

first mantra in the sukta and the 3rd mantra gives a clear indication to

avidyA (mAyA, ignorance, darkness). In that case, I feel that even the

context is perfect for mAyA.

Loving Regards,

Siddhartha

[Guest guest]

>K. Sadananda Ji wrote:

>>>>Shreeman Chari did discuss the sloka you are referring to and showed

>that one has to examine the whole sloka not that statement by itself

>and also the context the statement occurs. He showed that from that

>perspective the meaning does not reflect the maaya that we are

familiar in advaitic tradition.

 

Shree Siddharthaji wrote:

>

>I'm very interested and keen to know about how he could show that.

>Loving Regards,

>Siddhartha

 

Siddharthaji - once I get hold of the tapes of his talks, I will be

able to provide his analysis.

 

Hari Om!

Sadananda

--

K. Sadananda

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