illusion, an effect (belief) of ego or intellect; the world of matter, of phenomena (effect), materiality, (3-space).
Keely
"The immortal EGO is an entity of which man can become thoroughly conscious while here on earth, but to arrive at this consciousness necessitates the entire abandonment of all the petty considerations involved in the transient and subordinate EGO, which is the only self of which the unenlightened man is conscious. Let him who desires to reach this inner consciousness enter his inner sanctuary, wherever that sanctuary may be; it matters not whether it be his own chamber, the open field, the mountain top, the seashore, the stately cathedral, or the humble village chapel. Let him realize fully the transient character of his own personality and contrast therewith his eager longing to know the immortal. Let him concentrate his whole consciousness upon his personality, fully arousing all his personal conditions as a distinct individual; then with all the aspiration of which this personality is capable, let him beseech of the immortal EGO - which is eternal and does not incarnate, but overshadows all incarnations, waiting until one is formed capable of illumination, to whom it may reveal itself - to consider him worthy of illumination, and according to his preparedness to receive illumination will it then be granted. He who asks this, knows not what he asks; for were the prayer answered, life henceforth for such an one would be a weary round, as Hamlet says: "to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow brings in this weary round of life"; for, having seen the glory of this immortal EGO, all else seems so base, so commonplace and mean, so inglorious, that oftentimes the personality has utterly collapsed when thrown back from the radiant vision of this glorious immortal entity possessed by all alike, though scarcely dreamed of by any save the very few who, discontented with the ignorance and emptiness of terrene existence, aspire to know the great reality of the supernal. As the incarnations of every entity, passing through certain orders of experience through numerous lives, inevitably culminate in this moment of conscious realization of the immortal entity; the Buddha says: "All shall reach the sunlit snows." [Amplitude of Force]
Maya [from the verbal root m? to measure, form] Illusion, the non-eternal; in Brahmanical philosophy, the fabrication by the human mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, as it tries to interpret and understand the universe. While the exterior world exists — or it could not be illusory — we do not see clearly and as they actually are that which our mind and senses present to us. A traditional Vedantic illustration says that at twilight a person sees a coiled rope on the ground and springs aside, thinking it is a snake; the rope is there, but no snake.
Thus maya means that our minds are blinded and perverted by our own preconceptions and imperfections, and so does not interpret the world as it is.
“Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition. . . . Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself. Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached ‘reality’; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya” (SD 1:39-40).
Though sometimes used as an equivalent for avidya, maya is properly applicable only to prakriti, which is doomed to disappear at the time of pralaya. It is thus prakriti and its productions or changes (vikaras) which, by reacting against the operations of the consciousness of a perceiving being, casts the perceiver into the bonds of illusions, out of which the deluded being has to strive in order to free himself from the maya with which he is surrounded.
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/etgloss/mas-me.htm
Christ Returns - Speaks His Truth
"To discover your true SOURCE of BEING, I ask you to take stock of the unimaginable and indescribable complexity and diversity of purposeful work plainly evident in penguins and pigs.
Can the human mind replicate any of the most basic of activities within - say - the digestive system, which swiftly summons up the requisite enzymes and hormones necessary for digestion.
How dare the finite mind, which is incapable of perceiving clearly the true creative process governed by instinctual knowledge, presume to state unequivocally - defying contradiction - that it understands the true origins of creation and the forces out of which creation took form? What arrogance! These men can only think according to what their eyes tell them.
I view the present scientific ignorance with loving compassion, a degree of amusement, and a great all consuming passion to puncture their pride. For, until someone can penetrate their self-satisfaction and position of infallibility, a true mating of Eternal Verities and human scientific knowledge can never take place. But it must take place; otherwise human spiritual evolution will remain at a standstill.
The scientific mind is too full of 'finitely' devised book lore, accepted formulas and equations, and the need for their fellows' approval, to permit mystical penetration by Higher Intelligences.
On my behalf, I ask readers of these Letters, to form an association to challenge Science and ask 'at what point in the evolution of the 'material' world' is CONSCIOUSNESS first discernible?" [Christ Returns - Speaks His Truth, Letter 5, page 12]
- THE FIFTH GOSPEL*
Basically in the universe there is nothing but consciousness.
Except for consciousness, everything else belongs in the domain of maya, or the great illusion.
You can find these facts in two places — in others as well — but especially in the description of the evolution of the earth from ancient Saturn to Vulcan in An Outline Of Occult Science, where the evolution from ancient Saturn to ancient Sun, from Sun to ancient Moon, from Moon to Earth, and so on, are described as stages of consciousness.
This means that if one wants to reach these important facts, he must ascend to a stage of cosmic events where they consist of stages of consciousness.
Therefore, if we are describing realities we can only describe various stages of consciousness.
It is also included in another book published this summer: The Threshold of the Spiritual World.
Shown there is how through a gradual ascension of the seer's vision it rises from the objects and processes around us, which disappear into nothingness, melt away so to speak, and finally reaches the region where there are only beings in various stages of consciousness.
So the true realities of the world are beings in the various stages of consciousness.
Due to the fact that we live in the human stage of consciousness, and in this stage of consciousness have no complete overview of the realities involved, the effect is that what is unreal appears to us as real." [Rudolf Steiner]
Swami Vivekananda
About Maya In the book by Swami Vivikananda:
"Almost all of you have heard of the word Mâyâ. Generally, it is used, though incorrectly, to denote illusion, or delusion, or some such thing. But the theory of Maya forms one of the pillars upon which the Vedanta rests; it is, therefore, necessary that it should be properly understood. I ask a little patience of you, for there is a great danger of its being misunderstood.
The oldest idea of Maya that we find in Vedic literature is the sense of delusion; but then the real theory had not been reached. We find such passages as, "Indra through his Maya assumed various forms." Here it is true the word Maya means something like magic, and we find various other passages, always taking the same meaning. The word Maya then dropped out of sight altogether. But in the meantime, the idea was developing.
Later, the question was raised: "Why can't we know this secret of the universe?" And the answer given was very significant: "Because we talk in vain, and because we are satisfied with the things of the senses, and because we are running after desires; therefore, we, as it were, cover the Reality with a mist." Here the word Maya is not used at all, but we get the idea that the cause of our ignorance is a kind of mist that has come between us and the Truth.
Much later on, in one of the latest Upanishads, we find the word Maya reappearing, but this time, a transformation has taken place in it, and a mass of new meaning has attached itself to the word. Theories had been propounded and repeated, others had been taken up, until at last the idea of Maya became fixed. We read in the Shvetâshvatara Upanishad, "Know nature to be Maya and the Ruler of this Maya is the Lord Himself."
Coming to our philosophers, we find that this word Maya has been manipulated in various fashions, until we come to the great Shankarâchârya. The theory of Maya was manipulated a little by the Buddhists too, but in the hands of the Buddhists, it became very much like what is called Idealism, and that is the meaning that is now generally given to the word Maya.
When the Hindu says the world is Maya, at once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did not believe in the external world at all. But the Maya of the Vedanta, in its last developed form, is neither Idealism nor Realism, nor is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts — what we are and what we see around us."
"We have seen how the idea of Mâyâ, which forms, as it were, one of the basic doctrines of the Advaita Vedanta, is, in its germs, found even in the Samhitâs, and that in reality all the ideas which are developed in the Upanishads are to be found already in the Samhitas in some form or other.
Most of you are by this time familiar with the idea of Maya, and know that it is sometimes erroneously explained as illusion, so that when the universe is said to be Maya, that also has to be explained as being illusion. The translation of the word is neither happy nor correct.
Maya is not a theory; it is simply a statement of facts about the universe as it exists, and to understand Maya we must go back to the Samhitas and begin with the conception in the germ."
"What you call matter, or spirit, or mind, or anything else you may like to call them, the fact remains the same: we cannot say that they are, we cannot say that they are not. We cannot say they are one, we cannot say they are many. This eternal play of light and darkness — indiscriminate, indistinguishable, inseparable — is always there. A fact, yet at the same time not a fact; awake and at the same time asleep. This is a statement of facts, and this is what is called Maya. We are born in this Maya, we live in it, we think in it, we dream in it. We are philosophers in it, we are spiritual men in it, nay, we are devils in this Maya, and we are gods in this Maya.
Stretch your ideas as far as you can, make them higher and higher, call them infinite or by any other name you please, even these ideas are within this Maya. It cannot be otherwise, and the whole of human knowledge is a generalization of this Maya trying to know it as it appears to be. This is the work of Nâma-Rupa — name and form. Everything that has form, everything that calls up an idea in your mind, is within Maya; for everything that is bound by the laws of time, space, and causation is within Maya."
"n 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.
We are all like this in the world. A legend tells how once Nârada said to Krishna, "Lord, show me Maya." A few days passed away, and Krishna asked Narada to make a trip with him towards a desert, and after walking for several miles, Krishna said, "Narada, I am thirsty; can you fetch some water for me?" "I will go at once, sir, and get you water." So Narada went. At a little distance there was a village; he entered the village in search of water and knocked at a door, which was opened by a most beautiful young girl. At the sight of her, he immediately forgot that his Master was waiting for water, perhaps dying for the want of it. He forgot everything and began to talk with the girl. All that day he did not return to his Master. The next day, he was again at the house, talking to the girl. That talk ripened into love; he asked the father for the daughter, and they were married and lived there and had children. Thus twelve years passed.
His father-in-law died, and he inherited his property. He lived, as he seemed to think, a very happy life with his wife and children, his fields and his cattle, and so forth. Then came a flood. One night the river rose until it overflowed its banks and flooded the whole village. Houses fell, men and animals were swept away and drowned, and everything was floating in the rush of the stream. Narada had to escape. With one hand he held his wife, and with the other two of his children; another child was on his shoulders, and he was trying to ford this tremendous flood. After a few steps, he found the current was too strong, and the child on his shoulders fell and was borne away. A cry of despair came from Narada. In trying to save that child, he lost his grasp upon one of the others, and it also was lost. At last his wife, whom he clasped with all his might, was torn away by the current, and he was thrown on the bank, weeping and wailing in bitter lamentation. Behind him, there came a gentle voice, "My child, where is the water? You went to fetch a pitcher of water, and I am waiting for you; you have been gone for quite half an hour." "Half an hour!" Narada exclaimed. Twelve whole years had passed through his mind, and all these scenes had happened in half an hour! And this is Maya.
In one form or another, we are all in it. It is a most difficult and intricate state of things to understand. It has been preached in every country, taught everywhere, but only believed in by a few, because until we get the experiences ourselves, we cannot believe in it. What does it show? Something very terrible. For it is all futile. Time, the avenger of everything, comes, and nothing is left. He swallows up the saint and the sinner, the king and the peasant, the beautiful and the ugly; he leaves nothing. Everything is rushing towards that one goal — destruction. Our knowledge, our arts, our sciences, everything is rushing towards it. None can stem the tide, none can hold it back for a minute. We may try to forget it, in the same way that persons in a plague-stricken city try to create oblivion by drinking, dancing, and other vain attempts, and so becoming paralyzed. So we are trying to forget, trying to create oblivion by all sorts of sense-pleasures. And this is Maya."
"The idea that the goal is far off, far beyond nature, attracting us all towards it, has to be brought nearer and nearer, without degrading or degenerating it. The God of heaven becomes the God in nature, and the God in nature becomes the God who is nature, and the God who is nature becomes the God within this temple of the body, and the God dwelling in the temple of the body at last becomes the temple itself, becomes the soul and man — and there it reaches the last words it can teach.
He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says the Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong. That ideal of freedom that you perceived was correct, but you projected it outside yourself, and that was your mistake. Bring it nearer and nearer, until you find that it was all the time within you, it was the Self of your own self. That freedom was your own nature, and this Maya never bound you. Nature never has power over you. Like a frightened child, you were dreaming that it was throttling you, and the release from this fear is the goal: not only to see it intellectually, but to perceive it, actualize it, much more definitely than we perceive this world.
Then we shall know that we are free. Then, and then alone, will all difficulties vanish, then will all the perplexities of heart be smoothed away, all crookedness made straight, then will vanish the delusion of manifoldness and nature. And Maya, instead of being a horrible, hopeless dream, as it is now, will become beautiful, and this earth, instead of being a prison-house, will become our playground. Even dangers and difficulties, even all sufferings, will become deified and show us their real nature. They will show us that behind everything, as the substance of everything, He is standing, and that He is the one real Self." [Swami Vivekananda, "Jnana Yoga"]
See Also
Anu
Avidya
Darkness
Error
Ignorance
Illusion
Kutastha Chaitanya
Matter
Omniscient Love
Sense
sensed-conclusion
Substance