Maya and Illusion

[Guest guest]

This Maya is everywhere. It is terrible. Yet we have to work through

it. The man who says that he will work when the world has become all

good and then he will enjoy bliss is as likely to succeed as the man

who sits beside the Ganga and says, " I will ford the river when all

the water has run into the ocean. " The way is not with Maya, but

against it. This is another fact to learn. We are not born as helpers

of nature, but competitors with nature. We are its bond-masters, but

we bind ourselves down. Why is this house here? Nature did not build

it. Nature says, go and live in the forest. Man says, I will build a

house and fight with nature, and he does so. The whole history of

humanity is a continuous fight against the so-called laws of nature,

and man gains in the end. Coming to the internal world, there too the

same fight is going on, this fight between the animal man and the

spiritual man, between light and darkness; and here too man becomes

victorious. He, as it were, cuts his way out of nature to freedom.

 

We see, then, that beyond this Maya the Vedantic philosophers find

something which is not bound by Maya; and if we can get there, we

shall not be bound by Maya. This idea is in some form or other the

common property of all religions. But, with the Vedanta, it is only

the beginning of religion and not the end. The idea of a Personal

God, the Ruler and Creator of this universe, as He has been styled,

the Ruler of Maya, or nature, is not the end of these Vedantic ideas;

it is only the beginning. The idea grows and grows until the

Vedantist finds that He who, he thought, was standing outside, is he

himself and is in reality within. He is the one who is free, but who

through limitation thought he was bound.

 

- Swami Vivekananda