Deciphering Maya – The Cosmic Illusion

Maya @ copyright advaita living

A lot has been said and discussed about Maya in the Advaita Vedanta tradition, and it is the pillar of the teachings of Advaita Vedanta. In fact, the distinction between Advaita Vedanta and Sankhya lies in the understanding of the concept of Maya. While Sankhya talks about two parallel realities, namely matter and spirit, mentioned as Purusha and Prakriti, Advaita Vedanta claims that the perceived world is actually an appearance and calls it Maya. This means that there are not two parallel realities but a single reality that also appears as the world.

Advaita Vedanta gives the example of the appearance of a snake in a rope to illustrate the concept of Maya. It says that due to ignorance (not knowing our true nature), we perceive this world as real, just like someone could perceive an illusory snake in a rope (probably due to darkness akin to avidya in this metaphor). But when they see it closely, they understand their mistake and see the rope as it is – as a rope. Even when someone asked Ramakrishna Paramhamsa to summarize his final understanding and teachings in a couple of lines, he said, “Brahma satyam jagat mithya,” which means Brahman alone is real and the world is illusory.

However, my understanding of Maya is that it affects us, “the jiva,” and not Brahman, and it affects us on different levels. First of all, let us understand the problem. As per Advaita Vedanta, we are pure consciousness or Atman, but we have identified ourselves with the body-mind. This identified consciousness is termed as the jiva. Although consciousness wants to return to its original state of peace and tranquility, the jiva (identified consciousness) has to overcome several obstacles in order to:

1. Understand its true nature as pure consciousness, and

2. Get over the many traps of this phenomenal world that bind the jiva to this world.

For me, the journey of the soul or pure consciousness back to the recognition of its true nature is spirituality, and the traps that this phenomenal world or prakriti lays as obstacles is Maya. Maya strengthens the existence of the jiva and reinforces the ego, which means it does not allow us to see our true nature and binds us to this world of form.

We all can agree that what we are seeking is peace and happiness. However, usually, we seek it in the outside world in various forms such as career, money, relationships, objects, experiences, etc. It may appear that we are seeking something phenomenal, but a little bit of investigation will reveal to us that in essence, what we are seeking is peace and happiness. Here I would like to distinguish between happiness and true happiness, and this is a very important point that many of us often neglect, which leads to suffering.

True happiness is something that does not depend on objects or circumstances – it is uncaused. To me, this is such an important point that even if you take a few years to realize this, it is worth the effort. The reason I went on this tangent is because this is where Maya hits us, and it hits us so hard that by the time you realize your mistake, your life is most probably over. It tricks you into seeking happiness in the wrong direction.

As a jiva, the first question we need to ask ourselves is whether we are seeking peace and happiness in the right direction. As I mentioned before, Maya is something that binds us to this phenomenal world. So we are misled in the direction of happiness we seek. Most of us see examples of successful businessmen, successful actors, successful relationships, and so on, and believe that this is where happiness lies, and we start chasing it. This is Maya as it leads us to seek happiness in the wrong direction. We never bother to investigate whether the so-called successful people are really happy or, at the very least, peaceful. We never bother to investigate if this apparent happiness is dependent on objects or relationships and whether they would be equally happy in case of adversity in circumstances. Most often we find these same people miserable at the peak of their success or disgruntled when a relationship breaks or probably suicidal at the slightest adversity in their lives. On the contrary, we find sages who have gone inwards and have realized their true nature to be completely at peace in every circumstance and situation without exception. They are always joyful, and their happiness is not dependent on objects or circumstances.

Advaita Vedanta defines Maya as an appearance; it is that which appears as something which it is not. It proclaims to us that Brahman is appearing to us as this world. However, that is something we can discover when we go inwards, but we need to first tackle Maya where it hits us the most and hits us hard – and that is in the direction of happiness we are seeking. Maya – the cosmic illusion is an appearance, and hence it appears that peace and happiness are in the outside world – in objects, in relationships, in experiences, in material success, but we need to assess this belief and investigate further. If we are clear that all we seek is peace and happiness, it would not take much effort to understand that most of us are seeking it in the wrong direction. To overcome this appearance is to overcome Maya in its first spell.

A much finer spell of Maya is to trap you into spiritual seeking as a form of developing your spiritual ego. It is when you start seeking spirituality and religiousness in the outside world in the form of customs or practices or bookish knowledge. It may appear that you are seeking peace and happiness in the right direction, but as long as your focus is outwardly, it is still Maya. You may, in fact, end up becoming a scholar of spiritual texts and develop a spiritual or religious “ego,” and this is the same coin (of the ego) flipped on the other side. The scriptures declare that an ignorant one can get lost in darkness (andhakar), but a pseudo-spiritual one who just puppets the spiritual texts without proper understanding can get lost in the great darkness (maha andhakar). A good question to ask to evaluate this is whether your ego (or doership) is getting strengthened or weakened by any such practice?

However, once the direction of seeking peace and happiness is corrected, it is just a matter of time when we find it within ourselves as it is, in fact, our true nature. When we come to a stage where we recognize our true nature but are amazed by the nature of manifestation, that is when we understand the true meaning of Maya or appearance, and that cannot be put into words. This world or manifestation is Maya only for the gnani who has recognized his true nature and to everyone else, it is as real as it can get. I pray to the God Almighty to grant each and every one of us to take us on the path of self-realization and to grant us Moksha.

Om Asato Ma Sad Gamaya

Tamasoma Jyotir Gamaya

Mrityor Ma Amritam Gamaya

Om Take us from the unreal to the real

Take us from darkness unto light

Take us from death unto immortality

Om peace peace peace