What is Maya ?

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within Maya. We come here weeping to fight our way, as well as we can, and to

make path for ourselves through this infinite ocean of life; forward we go,

having long ages behind us and an immense expanse beyond. So on we go, till

death comes and takes us off the field - victorious or defeated, we do not

know. And this is Maya. In our desire to solve the mysteries of the

universe,, we cannot stop our questioning, we feel we must know and cannot

believe that no knowledge is to be gained. A few steps, and there aroused the

wall of begin less and endless time which we cannot surmount. A few steps, and

there appears a wall of boundless space which cannot be surmounted, and the

whole is irrevocably bound in by the walls of cause and effect. We cannot go

beyond them. Yet we struggle, and still have to struggle. And this is Maya.

Time, the avenger of everything, comes, and nothing is left. He swallows up

the saint and the sinner, the king and the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly;

and leaves nothing. Everything is rushing towards that one goal, destruction.

Everyday people are dying around us, and yet men think they will never die and

this is Maya. Animals are living upon plants, men upon animals and, worst of

all, upon one another, the strong upon the weak. This is going on everywhere.

And this is Maya. Like moths hurling themselves against the flame, we are

hurling ourselves again and again into sense pleasures, hoping to find

satisfaction there. We return again and again with freshened energy; thus we go

on, till crippled and cheated we die. And this is Maya. Is there no way out?

Is there no hope then? We find with all this, with this terrible fact before

us, in the midst of sorrow and suffering, even in this world a still small

voice that

is ringing through all ages, through every country, and in every heart: "This My

Maya is divine, made up of qualities, and very difficult to cross. Yet those

that come unto Me, cross the river of life." This is the voice that is leading

us forward. Man has heard it, and is hearing it all through the ages. This

voice comes to men when everything seems to be lost and hope has fled, when

man's dependence on his own strength has been crushed down, and everything

seems to melt away between his fingers, and life is a hopeless ruin. Then he

hears it. This is called religion. Not only the human soul, but all creatures

from the lowest to the highest have heard the voice and are rushing towards it;

and in the struggle are either combining with each other or pushing each other

out of the way. Thus come competition, joys, struggles, life, pleasure, and

death, and the whole universe is nothing but the result of this mad struggle to

reach the voice. This is the manifestation of nature. As soon as you know the

voice and understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which

was the ghastly battle field of Maya is now changed into something good and

beautiful. We no longer curse nature, nor say that the world is horrible and

that it is all vain; we need no longer weep and wail. As soon as we understand

the voice, we see the reason why this struggle should be here, this fight, this

competition, this difficulty, this cruelty, these pleasures and joys; we see

that they are in the nature of things, because without them there would be no

going towards the voice, to attain which we are destined, whether we know it on

not. The sun is moving towards the goal, so is the earth in circling round the

sun, so is the moon in circling round the earth. To that goal the planet is

moving, and the air is blowing.

Everything is struggling towards that voice, and cannot be hindered; the miseris

also going towards the same destination, the greatest worker of good hears the

same voice within, and he cannot resist it, he must go towards the voice; so

with the most arrant idler. One stumbles more we call bad, him who stumbles

less we call good. Good and bad are never two different things, they are one

and the same; the difference is not one of kind, but of degree. Religion

begins with a tremendous dissatisfaction with the present state of things, with

our lives, and a hatred, an intense hatred, for thispatching up of life, and

unbounded disgust for fraud and lies.There is a being beyond allthese

manifestation of Maya, who is superior to and independent of Maya, and who is

attracting us towards Himself, and that we are all going towards Him. The idea

that goal is far

off, far beyond nature, attracting us all towards it, has to be brought nearer

and nearer, without degrading or degenerating it. The God is heaven becomes the

God in nature, and the God in nature becomes the God within this temple of body,

and the God dwelling in the temple of the body at last becomes the temple

itself, becomes the soul and man -- and there it reaches the last words it can

reach.The voice that you heard was right, says the Vedanta, but you projected

it outside yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer,

until you find that is was all the time within you, it was the Self of your own

self. That freedom was our own nature, and this Maya never bound you, Nature

never has power over you. Like a frightened child you were dreaming that it was

throttling you, and the release form this fear is the goal: not only to see

intellectually, but to perceive it, intellectually it, much more definitely

than we perceive this world. Then we shall know that we are free. Maya is

explained through a small story Once Narada said to Krishna, "Lord, Show me

Maya." A few days passed away, and Krishna asked Narada to make a trip with him

towards a desert, and after walking for several miles, Krishna said, "Narada I

am thirsty; can you fetch some water for me:" I will go at once, sir, and get

you water."So Narada went. At a little distance there was a village; he entered

the village in search of water and knocked at a door, which was opened by a most

beautiful young girl. At the sight of her he immediately forgot that his master

was waiting for water, perhaps dying for the want of it. He forgot everything

and began to talk with the girl. All that day he did not return to his Master.

The next day, he was again at the house, taking to the girl. That talk ripened

into love; he asked the father for the daughter, and they were married and

lived there and has children. Thus twelve years passed. His father-in-law died,

he inherited his property. He lived, as he seemed to think, a very happy life

with his wife and children, his fields and his cattle, and so forth. Then came

the flood. One night the river rose until it overflowed its banks and flooded

the whole village. Houses fell, men and animals were floating in the rush of

the stream. Narada had to escape. With one hand he held his wife, and with the

other two of his children; another child was on his shoulders, and he was

trying to ford this tremendous flood. After a few steps he found the current

was too strong. and the child on his shoulders fell and was borne away. Acry of

despair came from Narada. In trying to save that

child, he lost his grasp upon one of the others, and italso was lost. At last

his wife, whom he clasped with all his might, was torn awayby the current, and

he was thrown on the bank, weeping and wailing in bitter lamentation. Behindhim

there came a gentle voice, "My child, where is the water? You wenttofetch a

pitcher of water, and I am waiting for you; you have been goneforquiet half an

hour.Half an hour!" Narada exclaimed. Twelve whole years had passed through

his mind, and all there scenes happened in half an hour! And this is Maya.

Sivaya Namah

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dear shiv bhakt selvakumar

om namo bhagawate rudraya

 

all shiv bhakts in this group thank you for posting wonderful

articles of wisdom. in fact dharmraja in his answers to the yaksha

prashnas also says the same that the biggest maya in the world is

that the humans pine for so many things as if they have no death

even when death is lurking and inevitable for all.

 

in praise of lord shiva and with best wishes and regards

arjun

 

 

, Selvaratnam

Selvakumar <selvauk wrote:

>

> Om Namah Sivaya

>

> Discourse by Sri Swami Vivekananda

>

>

> Maya is sometime erroneously explained as illusion. The oldest

idea of Maya in Vedic literature is the sense of delusion, meaning

something like magic; but at that time the real theory had not been

reached.

>

> And Maya of the Vedanta, in its last developed form, is neither

Idealism nor Realism, nor it it a theory. It is as simple statement

of facts - what we are and what we see around us. Maya is statement

of fact of this universe, of how it is going on. But in one form or

other we all are in Maya.

>

> We are philosophers in it, we are spiritual men in it, nay, we

are devils in this Maya, and we are gods in this Maya. Stretch your

ideas as far as you can make them higher and higher, call them

infinite or by any other name you please, even these ideas are

within this Maya. Whole of human knowledge is a generalization of

this Maya trying to know as it appears to be. Everything that has

form, everything that calls up an idea in your mind, is within Maya;

for everything that is bound by the laws of time, space, and

causation is within Maya. We come here weeping to fight our way, as

well as we can, and to make path for ourselves through this infinite

ocean of life; forward we go, having long ages behind us and an

immense expanse beyond. So on we go, till death comes and takes us

off the field - victorious or defeated, we do not know. And this is

Maya. In our desire to solve the mysteries of the universe,,

we cannot stop our questioning, we feel we must know and cannot

believe

> that no knowledge is to be gained. A few steps, and there aroused

the wall of begin less and endless time which we cannot surmount. A

few steps, and there appears a wall of boundless space which cannot

be surmounted, and the whole is irrevocably bound in by the walls of

cause and effect. We cannot go beyond them. Yet we struggle, and

still have to struggle. And this is Maya. Time, the avenger of

everything, comes, and nothing is left. He swallows up the saint and

the sinner, the king and the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly;

and leaves nothing. Everything is rushing towards that one goal,

destruction. Everyday people are dying around us, and yet men think

they will never die and this is Maya. Animals are living

upon plants, men upon animals and, worst of all, upon one another,

the strong upon the weak. This is going on everywhere. And this is

Maya. Like moths hurling themselves against the flame, we are

hurling ourselves again and again into sense pleasures,

> hoping to find satisfaction there. We return again and again with

freshened energy; thus we go on, till crippled and cheated we die.

And this is Maya. Is there no way out? Is there no hope then?

We find with all this, with this terrible fact before us, in the

midst of sorrow and suffering, even in this world a still small

voice that is ringing through all ages, through every country, and

in every heart: "This My Maya is divine, made up of qualities, and

very difficult to cross. Yet those that come unto Me, cross the

river of life." This is the voice that is leading us forward. Man

has heard it, and is hearing it all through the ages. This voice

comes to men when everything seems to be lost and hope has fled,

when man's dependence on his own strength has been crushed down, and

everything seems to melt away between his fingers, and life is a

hopeless ruin. Then he hears it. This is called religion. Not

only the human soul, but all creatures from the lowest to the highest

> have heard the voice and are rushing towards it; and in the

struggle are either combining with each other or pushing each other

out of the way. Thus come competition, joys, struggles, life,

pleasure, and death, and the whole universe is nothing but the

result of this mad struggle to reach the voice. This is the

manifestation of nature. As soon as you know the voice and

understand what it is, the whole scene changes. The same world which

was the ghastly battle field of Maya is now changed into something

good and beautiful. We no longer curse nature, nor say that the

world is horrible and that it is all vain; we need no longer weep

and wail. As soon as we understand the voice, we see the reason why

this struggle should be here, this fight, this competition, this

difficulty, this cruelty, these pleasures and joys; we see that they

are in the nature of things, because without them there would be no

going towards the voice, to attain which we are destined, whether we

know it on not.

> The sun is moving towards the goal, so is the earth in

circling round the sun, so is the moon in circling round the earth.

To that goal the planet is moving, and the air is blowing.

Everything is struggling towards that voice, and cannot be hindered;

the miseris also going towards the same destination, the greatest

worker of good hears the same voice within, and he cannot resist it,

he must go towards the voice; so with the most arrant idler. One

stumbles more we call bad, him who stumbles less we call good. Good

and bad are never two different things, they are one and the same;

the difference is not one of kind, but of degree. Religion

begins with a tremendous dissatisfaction with the present state of

things, with our lives, and a hatred, an intense hatred, for

thispatching up of life, and unbounded disgust for fraud and

lies.There is a being beyond allthese manifestation of Maya, who is

superior to and independent of Maya, and who is attracting us

towards Himself, and

> that we are all going towards Him. The idea that goal is far off,

far beyond nature, attracting us all towards it, has to be brought

nearer and nearer, without degrading or degenerating it. The God is

heaven becomes the God in nature, and the God in nature becomes the

God within this temple of body, and the God dwelling in the temple

of the body at last becomes the temple itself, becomes the soul and

man -- and there it reaches the last words it can reach.The voice

that you heard was right, says the Vedanta, but you projected it

outside yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and

nearer, until you find that is was all the time within you, it was

the Self of your own self. That freedom was our own nature, and this

Maya never bound you, Nature never has power over you. Like a

frightened child you were dreaming that it was throttling you, and

the release form this fear is the goal: not only to see

intellectually, but to perceive it, intellectually it, much more

definitely

> than we perceive this world. Then we shall know that we are free.

> Maya is explained through a small story Once Narada

said to Krishna, "Lord, Show me Maya." A few days passed away, and

Krishna asked Narada to make a trip with him towards a desert, and

after walking for several miles, Krishna said, "Narada I am thirsty;

can you fetch some water for me:" I will go at once, sir, and get

you water."So Narada went. At a little distance there was a village;

he entered the village in search of water and knocked at a door,

which was opened by a most beautiful young girl. At the sight of her

he immediately forgot that his master was waiting for water, perhaps

dying for the want of it. He forgot everything and

> began to talk with the girl. All that day he did not return to

his Master. The next day, he was again at the house, taking to the

girl. That talk ripened into love; he asked the father for the

daughter, and they were married and lived there and has children.

Thus twelve years passed. His father-in-law died, he inherited his

property. He lived, as he seemed to think, a very happy life with

his wife and children, his fields and his cattle, and so forth. Then

came the flood. One night the river rose until it overflowed its

banks and

> flooded the whole village. Houses fell, men and animals were

floating in the rush of the stream. Narada had to escape. With one

hand he held his wife, and with the other two of his children;

another child was on his shoulders, and he was trying to ford this

tremendous flood. After a few steps he found the current was too

strong. and the child on his shoulders fell and was borne away. Acry

of despair came from Narada. In trying to save that child, he lost

his grasp upon one of the others, and italso was lost. At last his

wife, whom he clasped with all his might, was torn awayby the

current, and he was thrown on the bank, weeping and wailing in

bitter lamentation. Behindhim there came a gentle voice, "My child,

where is the water? You wenttofetch a pitcher of water, and I am

waiting for you; you have been goneforquiet half an hour.Half an

hour!" Narada exclaimed. Twelve whole years had passed through his

mind, and all there scenes happened in half an hour! And this is

Maya.

>

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> Sivaya Namah

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> Photos – NEW, now offering a quality print service from

just 8p a photo.

>

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