DOCTRINE OF MAYA & ITS PERCEPTION BY ACHARYAS
[Compilation for a Discourse by N. R. Srinivasan from Different
Schools of Thought & Authors-July 2021]
Vedas say “aham Brahmasmi” and “devo
ekah” -- from first letter ‘aa’ to last letter ‘ha’(‘aa’ to ‘ha’ and
‘period’=a-ha-m) it is all Brahman alone
and God-head is one. Later Nasadiyasukta
said: This Brahman got bored and
split itself into two, as Purusha and Prakriti and then to many. Then Purushasukta said: ‘sahasraseersha purushahah saharaksahah sahasarapaat’--
it became manifold creation. So one
school of thought said Purusha is manifest Brahman and Prakriti is his illusion
or Maya as a result of his hidden energy or
Power. So, one school of thought
indulged in Archana Moorthi worship, visible form for worship, brought out the
concept of Ardhanareesvara, Sakti (energy) as equal partner or sahadharminee. Another group said,
Purusha is potential energy and Prakriti is kinetic energy that came out from potential
energy, though illusory most powerful and presented to us as Sakti form or in energetic
form, for our worship. It also said Potential energy is waste unless realized
as Kinetic and expressed that as Siva without Sakti is Sava (corpse). Yet
another school said Purusha is Refuge and Prakriti is Refugee and showed
Lakshmi at the feet of Narayana or in his chest as subservient, with its
Saranagati concept, telling all Prakriti is subservient to Purusha coming out
of him and merging back in him in its repeated cyclic operation, that is active
kinetic energy is purely dependent on inactive potential energy. Thus Maya
becomes real but of lower nature. All
these Vedic thoughts brought forth different Doctrines of Maya as Illusory and
Non-Illusory. With this background let
us understand the Doctrines of Maya from various philosophers.
Vedanta
declares that our real nature is divine: pure, perfect, eternally free. We do
not have to become Brahman, we are Brahman.
Our true Self, the Atman, is one with Brahman.
But
if our real nature is divine, why then are we so appallingly unaware of it? The
answer to this question lies in the concept of Maya, or
ignorance. Maya is the veil that covers our real nature and the real nature of
the world around us. Maya is fundamentally inscrutable: we don’t know why it
exists and we don’t know when it began. What we do know is that, like any form
of ignorance, Maya ceases to exist at the dawn of knowledge, the knowledge of
our own divine nature.
Brahman
is the real truth of our existence: in Brahman we live, move, and have our
being. “All this is indeed Brahman,” the Upanishads—the scriptures that form
Vedanta philosophy—declare. The changing world that we see around us can be
compared to the moving images on a movie screen: without the unchanging screen
in the background, there can be no movie. Similarly, it is the unchanging
Brahman—the substratum of existence—in the background of this changing world
that gives the world its reality.
Yet
for us this reality is conditioned, like a warped mirror, by time, space, and
causality—the law of cause and effect. Our vision of reality is further
obscured by wrong identification: we identify ourselves with the body, mind,
and ego rather than the Atman, the divine Self.
This
original misperception creates more ignorance and pain in a domino effect:
identifying ourselves with the body and mind, we fear disease, old age and
death; identifying ourselves with the ego, we suffer from anger, hatred, and a
hundred other miseries. Yet none of this affects our real nature, the Atman.
Maya
can be compared to clouds which cover the sun: the sun remains in the sky but a
dense cloud cover prevents us from seeing it. When the clouds disperse, we
become aware that the sun has been there all the time. Our clouds—Maya
appearing as egotism, selfishness, hatred, greed, lust, anger, ambition—are
pushed away when we meditate upon our real nature, when we engage in unselfish
action, and when we consistently act and think in ways that manifest our true
nature: that is, through truthfulness, purity, contentment, self-restraint, and
forbearance. This mental purification drives away the clouds of Maya and allows
our divine nature to shine forth.
Shankara,
the great philosopher-sage of seventh-century India, used the example of the
rope and the snake to illustrate the concept of Maya. Walking down a darkened
road, a man sees a snake; his heart pounds, his pulse quickens. On closer
inspection the “snake” turns out to be a piece of coiled rope. Once the
delusion breaks, the snake vanishes forever.
Similarly,
walking down the darkened road of ignorance, we see ourselves as mortal
creatures, and around us, the universe of name and form, the universe
conditioned by time, space, and causation. We become aware of our limitations,
bondage, and suffering. On “closer inspection” both the mortal creature as well
as the universe turn out to be Brahman. Once the delusion breaks, our mortality
as well as the universe disappear forever. We see Brahman existing everywhere
and in everything.
--Vedanta Society of Southern California
Swami Vivekananda on the Doctrine of
Maya
The
concept of Maya is a cardinal concept of the Vedanta. Vivekananda too uses this
concept to answer the queries left behind by the essential nature of man. As
Vivekananda vehemently urged that essentially man is divine, the Atman, which
is none other than Brahman himself, it could be asked why then divinity is not
known to man? If nothing but Brahman exists in the universe, only he being the
only truth, how come that the reality of this Brahman remains unnoticed? Vedic
thinkers had answered these queries that this unawareness is due to the veil
that Maya has created. It is because of Maya that has concealed the reality and
makes us take those things as real which are mere illusions.
Later,
Sankaracharya had given the illusion of snake in rope to
illustrate his point. A man sees a rope in dark and mistakes it to be snake.
Only by inspecting a little closer that he realizes his mistake that it is not
snake, but rope. Snake is superimposed on the rope and is only an illusion, and
not reality. The world is similarly an illusion and Maya has created this
illusion by concealing the true reality of the world which is none other than
Brahman.
Ramanuja did not accept the existence of avidya, because
if Brahman were omnipresent and non-dual then it would be impossible for an
opposing force such as avidya to exist. Moreover, if the world
and everything in it was truly an illusion, as Shankara contended, then all
religious scriptures must also logically be illusionary, which contradicts
Shankara's assertion that the Vedic scriptures resonate with truth (Vedokilam dharma moolam). For these and
other reasons, Ramanuja rejected Shankara's doctrines of maya (illusion)
and avidya (ignorance).
Vivekananda
does not accept this denotation of Maya as illusion. He finds contradiction in
admitting infinity and uniqueness of the ultimate reality on the one hand, and
Maya’s concealing the same. If ultimate reality or Brahman is the only truth of
this universe having infinite knowledge and power – omniscience and
omnipresent, which is the underlying principle of everything that is existent,
then how come Maya is able to conceal its identity? Maya which is admitted to
be creative power of the Brahman, should logically be then under its control.
How is it possible that Maya goes out of its control and get itself
superimposed upon it and produce the illusion of the world? That would make
Maya more powerful than Brahman itself. This is logically and metaphysically
impossible.
If
Brahman is the only single, unique reality, then Maya should have only relative
existence, but subservient to it, not superimposed on it. Ignorance, caused by
Maya, can veil only those things which are in the purview of knowledge, but as
Vivekananda maintains, “Nothing can have worked on the Absolute. There was no
cause. Not that we do not know, or that we are ignorant; but It is above
knowledge, and cannot be brought down to the plane of knowledge.”
Absolute
is something which is beyond our very capacities to know. If we take knowledge
in the sense of like knowing facts of the world, then Absolute is really
unknowable. We can have knowledge about X-Rays, but how would we define
Absolute. That is why, Vivekananda says that Absolute or the ultimate reality
is indescribable or indeterminate – that which cannot be described in
determinate terms.
Maya as delusion is the Vedic concept, which
nourished in the hands of Buddhists, and came down to the later thinkers by way
of legacy. Like old sages of Vedas, Buddhists too do not believe in the reality
of external world. But since this world exists very much before our eyes, Vedic
thinkers conceived Maya – the creative power of Brahman, which creates the
world, but simultaneously conceals the Brahman so that ultimate reality does
not come before us. Maya, for Vivekananda, is a, “simple statement of facts –
what we are and what we see around us.” to achieve things, and yet in the end
see ourselves trounced by unknown contingencies. Still, we are taught that only
that achieves something in life, who makes effort. So, still despite our best
efforts, why do we fail to achieve at times? Vivekananda says this is Maya.
This is a simple fact of our life which we experience in our daily life – a
fact which just exists but which does not have any reason. Maya is no
delusionary.
It is worth recalling here the following Mantra of MNU that refers to Maya as Power:Please go through the following Mantra in MNU:
ye te sahasramayu pāśā mṛtyo martyāya hantave | tān yajñasya māyayā sarvān- avayajāmahe ||
O Death, those thousand and ten thousand snares which thou hast laid for slaying man, all of them we remove by the power of our deeds of worship!
Śiva, the auspicious God, is described as the greatest yogi, for, he has overcome the army of Death. Therefore He, the Auspicious Lord, is called Antakāntaka. For the devotees of God, the way to escape from the meshes of Death, said above, lies in the power of worshipping Him (or worship of his Power aspect)—the performance of prescribed duties to God properly and in the right spirit. This is perhaps what is implied by the phrase yajñasya māyayā or by the power of worship, where maaya means power. The same Upanishad addresses Sun whom we worship during Sandhyavandana as Power: "Tejas Ojas"--Energy; Splendor
This needs a little elucidation. We see all the time making effort to achieve things, and yet in the end see ourselves trounced by unknown contingencies. Still, we are taught that only that achieves something in life, who makes effort. So, still despite our best efforts, why do we fail to achieve at times? Vivekananda says this is Maya. This is a simple fact of our life which we experience in our daily life – a fact which just exists but which does not have any reason. Maya is no delusionary force that conceals any reality; rather it is the name of all the contradictions that we see around. It is a simple statement of fact about this universe. This world which ancient thinkers called Maya in terms of delusion is not so according to Vivekananda. True, that many a times we come to realize the hallucinations in our real life like when we sleep, we take dreams to be reality. And upon waking, we realize the delusion of our dreams. Similarly, the enlightened souls at times doubt even this waking world as to what if even this waking world is a dream? This whole world may be a dream which we have taken for granted. We talk to each other, do a lot of feats in our dreams, and upon waking we realize, that was but a dream. Who knows that all this business in life that we go about doing day in and day out may turn out to be dream in the end? The fact is that we know nothing about this world; we just take it for granted. No one can prove that one is not dreaming right now, after all we do sleep-talking and even sleep-walking. In that context, they call this world a Maya – a delusion.
Vivekananda
rejects this conception of world as delusion, and maintains that it has no
absolute existence, which only Brahman has. The world exists only in relation
to our minds and, “It has, therefore no real existence; it has no unchangeable,
immovable, infinite existence. Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that
it exists, and we have to work in and through it. It is a mixture of existence
and non-existence.”
This
apparently seems a contradiction, and Maya is nothing but how this
contradiction is existing. Our whole lives are replete with contradictions. We
have to die someday, yet we think that we will live here always. All our
projects on earth appear to bear the stamp of eternity. We glorify good, but
have to face evil at every step. We assume and preach the monist view of
reality (i.e. only one reality), yet we see two realities as if existing
simultaneously – good and evil both. We day and night want a place to live in
where everything would be good, and nothing evil, and yet Vivekananda says,
such a desire itself is full of contradiction. This is because, there would
never be a world which is absolutely good or absolutely bad, because even this
goodness and badness are relative to our tastes, time and place. A thing which
appears good to me now, may appear bad to me some other time. The fire that
burns the child, cooks food for the people. The same nerves carrying sensation
of misery carry sensation of pleasure. How would good separated from evil
exist? There can’t be good without evil, pleasure without misery, life without
death. We want and take ourselves to be as if we are here to stay on this earth
forever, knowing well that this is not possible. This is the contradiction of
our life, and this is called Maya by Vivekananda. The underlying thread running
in all these contradictions is the optimist nature of a human being, which is
highly dominant in childhood. Child has high hopes in things running according
to his fancies.
Child
can see trees waving to him, nature talking to him in host of voices, but as he
grows young, he starts seeing realities. More grows the child, more the ideals
of his childhood recede and then death stops all this business. The
contradiction is that even though this happens to every child, past or future,
still as we grow old, we don’t cease to hope for good to happen to us. In this
endless optimism, we plan our journeys. Many a times, our plans hopelessly
fail, even though, our planning had been meticulous. The example of senseless
failures of countless men may be before us, but still, we would press on to
having our own experience. Vivekananda here gives an example of futility of
sensual experiences which people are being taught for ages, but which we can’t
learn because not only we do not learn from others’ experiences, but we don’t
learn from our own experiences as well. “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.”
This
contradiction of life is called Maya by Vivekananda. Western man called it with
the phrase – Man proposes, God disposes! Maya is a trap of this contradictory
life from which it is impossible for us to get out of. The world which is
interplay of light and dark, good and evil, an interplay which has neither beginning
nor end is a big Maya in which we live day in and day out. We live in this
Maya, think in it, born and die in it. Our hopes, desires, thoughts, fears,
feats and defeats are surrounded by this Maya. Nothing can be out of it.
Everything
that can be named or have a form, Nama-Rupa, is essentially in Maya. Everything
bound by time-space and causation is within Maya. Because, this contradictory
co-existence of light and dark is the fact of life, a fact of this universe of
which we cannot remain ignorant or skeptic for long. Thus, Maya is not
something dreadful, but it is a plain fact of our lives which we should accept.
Not just our personal, but our social lives are replete with Maya. Vivekananda
compares the social lives of Indian and Western countries. In India, people get
married early in their lives, their spouses chosen by their parents. Their
marital misery is usually accounted for by their lack of liberty and decision
in their marriages. But, Vivekananda asks, are Western people better off than
with the huge amount of liberty that they possess? Their social life is marked
with frequent marriages, but equally frequent divorces. Indians are unhappy
because of lack of freedom, Westerns are also unhappy because they can choose
and forego. So, what is the solution? Vivekananda says, there is no solution to
this contradiction. Maya is not about explaining the causes of the world
affairs; it is about stating the facts as they exist in it. It does not give
causes, and hence no remedy is possible. It just states that that is how things
are there.
Though,
we can’t step out of Maya, surely we can know its existence. Vivekananda here
gives hope of optimism and says that yes that is possible by realization. “When
one realizes Brahman, for him Maya exists no longer, just as once the identity
of the rope is found out, and the illusion of the serpent comes no more.”
All
the apparent changes that we see around are mere reflections of one unchanging
substance called Brahman which is the sole reality of this universe. It can be
asked if the ultimate reality is Brahman, which is unchanging, then how come we
see changes in the universe which are happening day in and day out. Vivekananda
explains this with the help of clouds and sun.
Clouds
assemble over the sun and give the appearance of sun being moving behind their
fleeting fleece. In reality, it is the clouds that are moving, not the sun.
Like, while journeying in a train, we see various landscapes moving, but in
reality, it is not the landscapes, but train which is moving. The moving
landscapes are mere illusions. Similarly, all the changes are mere illusions,
the underlying substratum is unchanging. The fact that both change and
permanence are co-existing is Maya. Maya is the name of not illusions then, but
all the contradictions that we see around.
It
is there in beings indivisible and as if divided--Gita.
Brahman, the Truth, the Knowledge, the Infinite--Taittiriya
Upanishad.
Know Purusha and Prakriti to be both eternal without
beginning--Gita.
One must know Maya as Prakriti and the Master of Maya
as the great Lord of all--Svetaswatara Upanishad.
It is the might of the Godhead in the world that turns
the wheel of Brahman. Him one must know, the supreme Lord of all lords, the
supreme Godhead above all godheads. Supreme too is his Shakti and manifold the
natural working of her knowledge and her force. One Godhead, occult in all
beings, the inner Self of all beings, the all-pervading, absolute without
qualities, the overseer of all actions, the witness, the knower.
Maya
is Divine Energy or Sakti
Bhagawad Gita states:
mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te |daivī hyeṣhā
guṇa-mayī
mama māyā
duratyayā || 7-14 ||
My divine
energy Maya, consisting of the three modes of nature, is very difficult to overcome.
But those who surrender unto me cross over it easily.
Some people claim that
Maya is mithyā (non-existent)--Brahma satyam jagat mithyam. They say that the material
energy Maya is a perception created due to our ignorance, but if someone
attains spiritual knowledge, Maya will cease to exist. The soul itself is the
Ultimate Reality, and once we understand that, all illusions shall dispel. However,
this theory is negated by the Bhagavad Gita in this verse. Shree Krishna has
already stated that Maya is an extension of His energy and not an illusion.
The Śhvetāśhvatar Upaniṣhad also states:
māyāṁ tu prakṛitiṁ vidyānmāyinaṁ tu maheśhvaram (4.10)
“Maya is the energy (prakṛiti), while God is the
Energetic.”
The Ramayan states:
so dāsī raghubīra ki samujheṅ mithyā sopi
“Some people think Maya
is mithyā (non-existent), but factually it is an
energy engaged in the service of God.”
One could then ask, “Is it impossible to overcome Maya?” The second line of this verse has the answer to this question. Shree Krishna says, “Those who surrender themselves to Me, the Supreme Lord, then by My grace, they would smoothly cross the ocean of material existence. I will instruct Maya to leave this soul, now that it has become Mine.” On God’s instructions Maya, the material energy of God, simply releases the surrendered soul from its clutches. It says, “My job is to keep troubling the soul until it surrenders at the feet of God; once the soul reaches there, my job is complete.”
In the same way, we are
in the clutches of Maya, the material energy. Although it is subservient to
God, it keeps troubling us so that we keep moving towards God. By our own
efforts, we cannot defeat Maya; only when we surrender completely to God, by
His grace, we can cross the ocean of material existence.
Shri Krishna
says that Maaya is divine, which means that it is supported by Ishvara but it
has reality on its own. In our lives, however, we still rely on Maaya for
support. We rely on our savings, friends, family, job, education and so on as
our refuge if times get tough. But all this is still the product of Maaya. Once
we shift our thinking that Maaya cannot be a support, we will rely on the cause
of Maaya for support instead of Maaya. And that cause is Ishvara. We can only
enjoy bungee jumping when we have a strong rope and support. Similarly, we can
enjoy the play of Maaya if we have tethered ourselves to Ishvara.
Maya
is a Power of Brahman says Aurobindo
Once we begin to recognize that
there is this inherent contradiction involved in positing on the one side an
all-Knowing, all-Pervading, sole and absolute Existence; and on the other an
unreal, illusory consciousness imposed by the action of Maya, we recognize that
our framing of the issue, and our understanding of the issue must be the cause
of the contradiction. It becomes clear that what we have called “Maya” and considered to be an
imposition, is actually a power and action of the Brahman.
Sri Aurobindo describes the
result of this recognition as follows: “We begin to envisage the Reality as an
eternal oneness, status, immutable essence of pure existence supporting an
eternal dynamics, motion, infinite multiplicity and diversity of itself. The
immutable status of oneness brings out of itself the dynamics, motion and
multiplicity– the dynamics, motion and multiplicity not abrogating but bringing
into relief the eternal and infinite oneness. If the consciousness of Brahman
can be dual in status or action or even manifold, there seems to be no reason
why Brahman should be incapable of a dual status or a manifold real
self-experience of its being. The cosmic consciousness would then be, not a
creative Illusion, but an experience of some truth of the Absolute.”
Whereas the concept of an imposed
illusion leaves us with a lot of contradictions, the concept of the One
Existence being able to manifest itself and sustain multiple standpoints and
statuses of consciousness, preserves the essence of One, Absolute, All-Knowing,
All-Powerful Timeless Existence.
In this context please go through the following Mantra in MNU:
ye
te sahasramayu pāśā mṛtyo
martyāya hantave | tān yajñasya
māyayā sarvān- avayajāmahe ||
O Death, those thousand and ten
thousand snares which thou hast laid for slaying man, all of them we remove by
the power of our deeds of worship!
Śiva, the auspicious God, is described as the
greatest yogi, for, he has overcome the army of Death. Therefore He, the
Auspicious Lord, is called Antakāntaka. For the devotees of God, the way
to escape from the meshes of Death, said above, lies in the power of
worshipping Him—the performance of prescribed duties to God properly and in the
right spirit. This is perhaps what is implied by the phrase yajñasya māyayā or by the power of
worship, where maaya means power.
Bhagavad Gita
In
the Bhagavadgita, Bhagavan Krishna explains that he is able to become immanent
in the physical world through the power of Maya. He says ‘Though I am
unborn and eternal by nature, and though I am the Lord of all beings,
subjugating My Prakriti, I accept birth through my own Maya.’ (4.6)
Thus,
Maya has a positive aspect in its ability to generate Bhagavan’s avatars who
come to the aid of humankind for the protection of dharma.
However,
the Bhagavad Gita also states that Maya is a negative concept, as its
production of the physical world deprives human beings of insights into the
true nature of the universe. The positive aspect of Maya is seen in the
teachings and actions of Krishna and the negative aspect is seen in the
delusion and grief of Arjuna in the Mahabharata.
The
law of karma governs the birth of a human being while the Lord is not subject
to the law of Karma. He assumes the human form (avatar) retaining His power
over the inscrutable Maya by which other beings are bound. This Maya remains as
a self-imposed limitation of the Lord as long as he chooses to dwell in a human
form. On account of Maya He acts like a human being; but it does not affect His
nature. After His mission in the world is over, He Himself withdraws Maya and
regains His incorporeal nature. His activities in the world are for setting up
an example to ordinary men.
The
embodiment of the Lord is only an appearance. A created being is under the
control of Maya while the Lord is the controller of Maya. The birth and death
of the Lord depends on His own will but the birth and death of an embodied
being are due to the law of Karma. This is the difference between the Lord and
the embodied being.
The
Bhagavad Gita starts with the melancholy of Arjuna, which demonstrates the
negative effect of Maya. Arjuna, even though well known for his nobility and
bravery lost his discriminating wisdom under the influence of sorrow and
delusion which were caused by affection and attachment arising from such ideas
as, ‘I am theirs and they are mine’ with regard to kingdom, teachers, friends,
relatives, kinsmen and so on. As a result he desisted from the battle which was
his duty as a Kshatriya and to which he himself came forward on his own accord
but later started thinking of living like a mendicant depending on alms.
Thereby, he sank into a great mental malevolence overpowered by the veil of
Maya under its avarana and viksepa sakti.
“Delusion
caused by ego and attachment, is the cause of samsara, the incessant round of
birth and death in the relative world. Only by knowledge of Reality can it be
destroyed.
After
receiving such enlightening Knowledge from Krishna, Arjuna got rid of sorrow
and delusion, regained his composure and engaged himself in winning the war
which was his natural duty. This is the positive element of Maya. We have
seen that Maya consists of three gunas and going beyond Maya or the three gunas
is liberation. Bhagavan tells us how we can cross over the three gunas.
He who worships Me with the Yoga of undeviating love rises above the gunas and
becomes fit to be one with Brahman. (14.26)
Verily,
this divine Maya of Mine, made up of the gunas is difficult to overcome; those
who take refuge in Me alone, shall cross over this Maya. (7.14)
This divine Maya is inscrutable to human reason and it is hard to overcome by
one’s own effort unaided by Divine Grace. Hence Bhagavan says abandoning all
duties one should become devoted to Him alone who is the Lord of Maya and the
innermost Self of every being and he shall be liberated from the bondage of
Maya. If by worshipping the Lord anybody can get rid of Maya, why do not all
worship Him?
Bhagavan
answers ‘The evil-doers, the deluded, the lowest of men, do not seek Me,
deprived of knowledge by Maya and following the way of the asuras.’ (7.15)
He continues ‘I am not revealed to all veiled by My Maya born of the
Gunas. This deluded world knows Me not, the Unborn and eternal.’
(7.25) Ignorant persons do not recognize an incarnation of God on account of
the veil of Maya and regard him as an ordinary mortal.
The
Lord Himself, through His grace, gives right knowledge to those who worship him
with love. He says ‘On those who are ever devoted to Me and worship Me
with love, I bestow the Yoga of understanding, by which they come to Me.’
(10.10) Yoga of understanding means a superior and exalted condition of
the mind produced by meditation on the Lord by which the aspirant realizes the
real nature of the Lord, through His grace alone free from all limitations.
This is the ultimate goal of all spiritual endeavors.
Bhagavan
concludes his teaching with the clarion call to all of us by telling
Arjuna: ‘The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, and by His
Maya causes them to revolve as though mounted on a machine’ (18.61). As in a
puppet show the strings controlling the dolls are manipulated by their master
behind the scenes the created beings move and act on the stage of this relative
world under the control of the Lord seated in the hearts of all.
‘Priority, under His guidance, gives birth to all things, moving and unmoving;
and because of this, the world revolves.’ (9.10) and therefore, ‘abandoning all
rites and duties take refuge in Me alone. I shall free you from all sin.
Therefore do not grieve. (18.66)
Here
religious rites and duties mean all actions, good or evil, which create bondage
and therefore are incomparable with the supreme liberation taught by Bhagavan.
Sri Krishna lays down renunciation of all actions and surrendering to Him as
the means of ultimate liberation or moksha. According to Sankara liberation can
be attained only by removing ignorance through knowledge of Brahman as darkness
can be destroyed only by light.
Sri
Krishna again and again tells “Fix your mind on Me, be devoted to Me,
sacrifice to Me, bow down to Me. Having thus disciplined yourself and regarding
Me as the Supreme goal, you will come to Me.” (9.34). This advice is also
repeated in Chapter 18 Verse 65 as “Fix your heart on Me, give your love to Me,
worship Me, bow down to Me; so shall you come to Me. This is My pledge to you,
for you are dear to Me.”
Bhagavan
reiterates “O scion of Bharata dynasty, he who being free from delusion,
knows Me thus as a Supreme Person (Purushottama), he is all knowing and adores
Me with his whole being.” (15.19) and “Take refuge in Him alone with your whole
being, O scion of Bharata dynasty. Through His grace, you will attain the
supreme Peace and the eternal abode.”(18.65)
Thus Devotion and Knowledge destroy the illusion of the very existence of the
relative universe and reveals the Reality which is the One without a second.
This destruction of Maya is simultaneous with the revelation of the ever
existing Reality.
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa on Maya
Kali
and Maya: Sri Ramakrishna, on the other hand, though fully aware,
like his guru, that the world is an illusory appearance, instead of slighting
Maya, like an orthodox monist, acknowledged its power in the relative life. He
was all love and reverence for Maya itself was God, for everything was God. It
was one of the faces of Brahman. What he had realized on the heights of the
transcendental plane, he also found here below, everywhere about him, under the
mysterious garb of names and forms. And this garb was a perfectly transparent
sheath, through which he recognized the glory of the Divine Immanence. Maya,
the mighty weaver of the garb, is none other than Kali, the Divine Mother. She
is the primordial Divine Energy, Sakti, and She can no more be distinguished
from the Supreme Brahman than can the power of burning be distinguished from
fire. She projects the world and again withdraws it. She spins it as the spider
spins its web. She is the Mother of the Universe, identical with the Brahman of
Vedanta, and with the Atman of Yoga. As eternal Lawgiver, She makes and unmakes
laws; it is by Her imperious will that karma yields its fruit. She ensnares men
with illusion and again releases them from bondage with a look of Her benign
eyes. She is the supreme Mistress of the cosmic play, and all objects, animate
and inanimate, dance by Her will. Even those who realize the Absolute in
nirvikalpa samadhi are under Her jurisdiction as long as they still live on the
relative plane.
Thus,
after nirvikalpa samadhi, Sri Ramakrishna realized Maya in an altogether new
role. The binding aspect of Kali vanished from before his vision. She no longer
obscured his understanding. The world became the glorious manifestation of the
Divine Mother. Maya became Brahman. The Transcendental Itself broke through the
Immanent. Sri Ramakrishna discovered that maya operates in the relative world
in two ways, and he termed these "avidyamaya" and
"vidyamaya". Avidyamaya represents the dark forces of creation:
sensuous desires, evil passions, greed, lust, cruelty, and so on. It sustains
the world system on the lower planes. It is responsible for the round of man's
birth and death. It must be fought and vanquished. But vidyamaya is the higher
force of creation: the spiritual virtues, the enlightening qualities, kindness,
purity, love, devotion. Vidyamaya elevates man to the higher planes of
consciousness. With the help of vidyamaya the devotee rids himself of
avidyamaya; he then becomes mayatita, free of maya. The two aspects of maya are
the two forces of creation, the two powers of Kali; and She stands beyond them
both. She is like the effulgent sun, bringing into existence and shining
through and standing behind the clouds of different colors and shapes,
conjuring up wonderful forms in the blue autumn heaven.
The Divine Mother asked Sri Ramakrishna not to be lost in the featureless
Absolute but to remain, in bhavamukha, on the threshold of relative
consciousness, the border line between the Absolute and the Relative. He was to
keep himself at the "sixth center" of Tantra, from which he could see
not only the glory of the seventh, but also the divine manifestations of the
Kundalini in the lower centers. He gently oscillated back and forth across the
dividing line. Ecstatic devotion to the Divine Mother alternated with serene
absorption in the Ocean of Absolute Unity. He thus bridged the gulf between the
Personal and the Impersonal, the immanent and the transcendent aspects of
Reality. This is a unique experience in the recorded spiritual history of the
world.
Sri
Ramakrishna says “The universe is created by the Mahamaya of God. Mahamaya
contains both Vidyamaya, the illusion of knowledge and Avidyamaya, the illusion
of ignorance. Through the help of Vidyamaya one cultivates such virtues as the
taste for the holy company, knowledge, devotion, meditation, love, and renunciation.
It includes discrimination and dispassion (Viveka and Vairagya) - i.e. God is
real and the world illusory.
‘Avidyamaya consists of the five elements and the objects of the five senses
viz.. sound, touch, form, taste and smell (shabda, sparsha, roopa, rasa and
gandha). These make one forget God.’ A question was raised if the power of
Avidyamaya is the cause of ignorance, then why has God created it? The reply
given by the sage was ‘That it is His play. The glory of light cannot be
appreciated without darkness. Happiness cannot be understood without misery.
Knowledge of good is possible because of knowledge of evil.’
‘He who has knowledge has ignorance also. Therefore go beyond knowledge and
ignorance. Suppose a thorn has pierced a man’s foot. He picks another thorn to
pull out the first one. After extracting the first thorn with the help of the
second thorn he throws away both the thorns. Similarly, one should use the
thorn of knowledge to pull out the thorn of ignorance. Then one throws away
both the thorns – knowledge and ignorance and attains Vijnana.’
‘What is Vijnana? It is to know God distinctly by realizing His existence
through an intuitive experience and to speak to Him intimately. In order to
attain Vijnana one has to accept the help of Vidyamaya. That is why Sri Krishna
said to Arjuna: Go beyond the three
gunas.’--T.N. Sethumadhavan
All
Schools of Thought agree Un-manifest Brahman (Nirguna Brahman) presents Itself
in Manifest Form (Saguna Brahman) to make us at-ease for worship and appeal as
a child approaching its parents. This is Purusha (God-Head Father) and Prakriti
or Maya or Nature as Mother. Traditional Advaita School says, Maya is illusory
and therefore go with single parenthood of Father. Sakti school says go with
more desirable Mother alone as single parenthood. Neo Ramakrishna-Advaita says
you need both with their care and share responsibilities living together where
mother is easily approachable in an ideal family. Lastly Visshishtadvaita says, you live in a
family where full responsibility falls on Father, as the H ead of the Family whom the
Mother approaches constantly for advice
and help while taking care of the child. Gita says, to-day we have both-parent
cred families as well as single-parent cared families whose requirements vary
and are different. Hence, you need all that pleases modern Hindu Society and
Culture. The Vedic Society of Vasudheka
Kutumbakam got disturbed by Modern Religious cultures that has penetrated
the Modern Hindu Society at home as well as in migrant countries and so we see
all these Doctrines of Maya are vehemently spread by Urban Monks to their followers that directly
influences our complex Temple Tradition
Worships! Gita enables all philosophers to draw their strength from its quotes.
Thus, it is thus a wonderful composition composed by Vedavysa, catering to the
needs of all to support their honest devotional pursuit!
All
agree on the Will of the Supreme and the Motive Force (Bmf) to create and sustain.
But the perception as to this Bmf varies--illusory or real, supreme, equal are
subservient to Brahman and strangely all are agreed on its veneration. they
also agreed on its cyclic nature like
Brahman’s visual manifestation.
Visishtadvaita
says ‘vidhartaram h
Saktas
address her as ‘Easvaree sarvabhootaanam’
and ‘sarvabhootanam mata’--Mother of
all entities inclusive of gods and stationary entities and says without her
there is no creation or sustenance of the Universe! It further says Sri
Vidyā is Brahma or Dahara Vidyā. It is one of the Dasha
Mahā Vidyās. In Sanātana Dharma there is a mārga called shākta
dharma, in which one can call upon the sarva vyāpaka/all pervading
'Eshwara Chaitanya Shakti' as Mother Divine and hailed as ‘Easvareem sarvabhutanam’ and
‘Sarvabutanam maataa’
Ramakrishna
Vedanta while agreeing with Saktas and paying obeisance to Mahamaya as Jaganmata as Visishtadvaita says,
and further elaborates, the only
qualification we need to call upon Her is to become childlike and stretch our
hands towards Her with all devotion and She, out of great compassion, bends
down and picks us up. If we are fortunate to get right guidance, this is the
safest and surest way to attain Ᾱtma Vidyā. Hence Ᾱdi
Shankara Bhagawat-pāda, though an Advaita Vedāntin, has validated,
propagated and done pratishthā of Sri Vidyā in all his
Peethas across the country and also glorified in Soundarya Lahari. She wishes to put aside all description of
hers and just we need to be a humble child of Jagan-mātā. Adi Shankara precedes
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and so Ramakrishna Vedanta is guided by Sankara’s
Advaita Philosophy leading to final spiritual goal and his practical love and
veneration of Sakti aspect of Brahman as Mahamaya visualized as Parasakti.
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