Swami Sivananda Vani

[Guest guest]

MAYA

 

There is no duality in reality. All modification is illusory,

Multiplicity is an illusion.

 

Maya (the illusory power of the Lord) projects multiplicity. Maya

creates division ¬ division between the individual soul and the

supreme soul.

 

Maya is a tremendous, delusive power of God. Maya is the material

stuff of this world. Maya is the source of the physical universe.

This world of names and forms is a false show kept up by the jugglery

of maya. Just as a stick burning at one end, when waved round

quickly, produces an illusion of a circle of fire, so is it with the

multiplicity of the world. Maya deludes us. Maya creates havoc in the

mind. The things that we perceive all round us are only mind in form

or substance. The world is a product of the mind. The whole World is

an expansion of the mind. The entire universe arises and exists in

the mind. Nothing of the world is outside the mind. Earth, mountains

and rivers ¬ all are fragments of the mind, appearing as it were, to

exist outside. The world does not exist by itself. It is not seen

without the aid of the mind. It disappears when the mind ceases to

function, as in deep sleep.

 

It is imagination alone that assumes the forms of time, space and

motion. Space and time have no independent status apart from Brahman

or the self, which is pure awareness. There is no space without time,

and there is no time without space. Space and time go together. Space

and time are interdependent. They are both unreal. Time and space are

mental projections, as unreal as dreams. However real they may seem

to be, they are not ultimately real. Timeless, spaceless Brahman is

the only reality.

 

Brahman alone is. It is Brahman alone that shines as the world of

variegated objects, like water differentiated by the waves into many

kinds of foam, bubbles, etc. Brahman appears as the world when

cognised through the mind and the senses.

 

Maya conceals the truth and presents an error ¬ it veils the reality

and shows the world. Mistaking the body for atman or the self is

called maya. Maya screens the knowledge of atman and therefore man

mistakes one for the other. This is the cause of bondage ¬ we have

the erroneous consciousness that we are objective beings, that our

actions are objective expressions projected in time and space.