What is Maya ?

February 20, 2007

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.

Sivaya Namah