MAYA AND FREEDOM

[Guest guest]

Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Mon Jan 21, 2008 5:19 am (PST)

 

MAYA AND FREEDOM

- Swami Vivekananda

 

The senses drag the human soul out. Man is seeking for pleasure and

for happiness where it can never be found. For countless ages we are

all taught that this is futile and vain, there is no happiness here.

But we cannot learn; it is impossible for us to do so, except through

our own experiences. We try them, and a blow comes. Do we learn then?

Not even then. 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.

 

So with our intellect. 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 arises the wall of beginningless 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.

 

With every breath, with every pulsation of the heart with every one

of our movements, we think we are free, and the very same moment we

are shown that we are not. Bound slaves, nature's bond-slaves, in

body, in mind, in all our thoughts, in all our feelings. And this is

Maya.

 

There was never a mother who did not think her child was a born

genius, the most extraordinary child that was ever born; she dotes

upon her child. Her whole soul is in the child. The child grows up,

perhaps becomes a drunkard, a brute, ill-treats the mother, and the

more he ill-treats her, the more her love increases. The world lauds

it as the unselfish love of the mother, little dreaming that the

mother is a born slave, she cannot help it. She would a thousand

times rather throw off the burden, but she cannot. So she covers it

with a mass of flowers, which she calls wonderful love. And this is

Maya.

 

to be continued...

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 (Delivered in

London, 22nd October 1896)

------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

By doing well the duty which is nearest to us, the duty which is in

our hands now, we make ourselves stronger. And improving our strength

in this manner, step by step, we may even reach a state in which it

shall be our privilege to do the most coveted and honored duties in

life and in society.

- Swami Vivekananda