Maya and Illusion

[Guest guest]

Let me repeat, once more, that the Vedantic position is neither

pessimism nor optimism. It does not say that this world is all evil

or all good. It says that our evil is of no less value than our good,

and our good of no more value than our evil. They are bound together.

This is the world, and knowing this, you work with patience. What

for? Why should we work? If this is the state of things, what shall

we do? Why not become agnostics? The modern agnostics also know there

is no solution of this problem, no getting out of this evil of Maya,

as we say in our language; therefore they tell us to be satisfied and

enjoy life. Here, again, is a mistake, a tremendous mistake, a most

illogical mistake. And it is this. What do you mean by life? Do you

mean only the life of the senses? In this, every one of us differs

only slightly from the brutes. I am sure that no one is present here

whose life is only in the senses. Then, this present life means

something more than that. Our feelings, thoughts, and aspirations are

all part and parcel of our life; and is not the struggle towards the

great ideal, towards perfection, one of the most important components

of what we call life? According to the agnostics, we must enjoy life

as it is. But this life means, above all, this search after the

ideal; the essence of life is going towards perfection. We must have

that, and, therefore, we cannot be agnostics or take the world as it

appears. The agnostic position takes this life, minus the ideal

component, to be all that exists. And this, the agnostic claims,

cannot be reached, therefore he must give up the search. This is what

is called Maya--this nature, this universe.

 

All religions are more or less attempts to get beyond nature--the

crudest or the most developed, expressed through mythology or

symbology, stories of gods, angels or demons, or through stories of

saints or seers, great men or prophets, or through the abstractions

of philosophy--all have that one subject, all are trying to get

beyond these limitations. In one word, they are all struggling

towards freedom. Man feels, consciously or unconsciously, that he is

bound; he is not what he wants to be. It was taught to him at the

very moment he began to look around. That very instant he learnt that

he was bound, and he also found that there was something in him which

wanted to fly beyond, where the body could not follow, but which was

as yet chained down by this limitation. Even in the lowest of

religious ideas, where departed ancestors and other spirits--mostly

violent and cruel, lurking about the houses of their friends, fond of

bloodshed and strong drink--are worshipped, even there we find that

one common factor, that of freedom. The man who wants to worship the

gods sees in them, above all things, greater freedom than in himself.

If a door is closed, he thinks the gods can get through it, and that

walls have no limitations for them. This idea of freedom increases

until it comes to the ideal of a Personal God, of which the central

concept is that He is a Being beyond the limitation of nature, of

Maya. I see before me, as it were, that in some of those forest

retreats this question is being discussed by those ancient sages of

India; and in one of them, where even the oldest and the holiest fail

to reach the solution, a young man stands up in the midst of them,

and declares, " Hear, ye children of immortality, hear, ye who live in

the highest places, I have found the way. By knowing Him who is

beyond darkness we can go beyond death. "

 

- Swami Vivekananda

 

.... to be continued