Maya

 

In most of the Hindu philosophies like Dvaitam, Visistadvaitam, Tantric, Shaktam, the definition of Maya is very simple - it says that Bhagawan or God or Brahman has created Maya, the entire universe is Maya, everything that is created by God is Maya and has no connection with Brahman .... it is just a simple defintion..

But Advaita Vedanta has a unique and profound definition of Maya –

ब्रह्म सत्यं जगन्मिथ्या जीवो ब्रह्मैव नापरः। brahma satyam jagat mithya jivo brahmaiva naparah

Brahman alone is the reality, existence absolute, knowledge absolute, bliss absolute, the world or universe is an appearance, it is an appearance of the Brahman, the jivan - me and you - are none other than the Brahman itself.

Maya is nothing but Ignorance of our own nature for which the knowledge of Brahman is the solution. - This is the definition of the above statement by Adi Shankara.

Maya can be loosely translated in two forms

“(a) Giving the similes for the word “avarana” - 'illusion', 'concealment', 'the web of seeming', 'appearance', 'glamour', 'relativity', 'classification', 'contingency', 'objectivization', 'distinctivisation', 'exteriorisation';

 (b) Giving the similes for the word “Viksepa” - 'cosmic power', 'divine art', 'universal unfolding', 'cosmic magic', 'the power of Isvara' and 'the principle of self-expression'

Maya is neither Illusion, nor Idealism nor Realism or it is a Theory. -- It is just a statement of Fact.

"To logic maya is a puzzle. Wonder is its garment; inscrutable is its nature"

Let us look at it from purely scientific perspective.

I see objects through my eye, which is projected in to my brain and the mind "conceives" it. What it conceives is its own creation of the object based on its memories, its corelation with the other areas of the mind, the environment of the object

 

For example, in this picture of the chess board, the square B looks darker than square A due to the mind association with the chess board, while in reality the square A is darker than square B.

I my eyes see this table and conceives an image in my mind and what the conceiving of the Image is just the “projection” in my mind as a solid, dark brown table with four legs and draws. But in reality, it is nothing but a vast space 0.0000000000004% of that space occupied by electrons and neurons and positrons and other elementary particles

But the visual perception of the table is a Fact, but not reality.

So, all the objects, the whole world is a projection and the projections are facts, but it is not the reality.

So, it is not just an illusion – it is a Fact of life for us, but it is not the Reality, the Reality is empty space with very few particles in a particular structure

It is not an Idealism; it cannot be taken as an unrealistic belief – it is a Fact but not Reality

It is not just a theory, not a supposition of a bundle of ideas – it is a Fact but not Reality

It is not Reality --- Yes, it is just a Fact, but not a Reality

So should we take the world not seriously while we live in this world…. Hell no. We have to take it seriously. Here I would like to give the analogy of an Icon in a computer like Dr Donald Hoffman, the famous Cognitive Neuroscientist usually gives.

You have worked on a MS PPT presentation for a week, to be presented to the Sales Meeting next week. It is represented by the PPT Icon on your desktop. Does all the graphics, images, slides and information that you have put in the PPT is in that Icon? No, all the information that you have entered are in electrical energy in terms of the binary states of the memory in a memory chip either in your computer or in a cloud computer supported by millions of semiconductor components, power supply and they are encoded in a particular way as per the software with which it is created. That information are not in the “Icon of the PPT”

Since the Icon does not have all the “information’, can you drag the Icon and put it in the “Trash bin Icon” of the computer or click on it and do Alt+Ctrl+Del. No. You have to take the “Icon” seriously when you are working on the computer

Same way as long as you are “engaging” in the outside world, we need to take the outside world seriously and engage with it as a matter of Fact. But is the world Reality … No, it is not reality.

 "Vivekananda in fact admits that “He who knows the Real sees in Maya not illusion, but reality. He who knows not the Real sees in Maya illusion and thinks it real"

Advaita statements on Maya

  This maya cannot be expressed as it exists or cannot be expressed that it does not exist

This world is a Maya, you and me as the bodily identified personalities are Maya. This world and our bodily personalities can not be expressed as it exists from the ‘Reality’ perspective, since in Reality they are nothing but Brahman itself, as there nothing exists other than Brahman. But in ‘Factual’ perspective from the position of ‘dealing with the world’, we can not say it does not exist

 - Maya is made of three Gunas - Satva, Rajas, Tamas

There are three powers in Maya: the power of concealing the reality (avaranasakti), the power of projecting what is not real (vikshepasakti), and the power of jnana (jnanasakti). The first two are the causes of bondage; the third leads to liberation. The first is the result of the tamas part of Maya, the second is due to the rajas part and the third is due to the sattva part. Isvara’s Maya is predominantly sattvic and it is under His control. So there is no bondage for Him. The jiva’s Maya is constituted of all the three gunas in different proportions and so he suffers bondage. The rajoguna is the cause of attachment, aversion, etc., in the jiva. All qualities such as desire, doubt, fear, courage, resolve, faith, lack of faith, anger, avarice, pride, jealousy etc., (both good and bad qualities) relate only to the mind and not to the atma. They are superimposed on the atma because of lack of discrimination between the mind and the atma due to ignorance. These qualities of the mind are the cause of all the activities of the jiva. The “Power of concealing the reality” is the first to kick in, in the Jiva due to which the Real nature of Jiva, which is Brahman itself, gets concealed and the other three power takes over. Thus the veiling power of Maya is the root cause of the jiva’s bondage and transmigration. As Adi Shankara says in his Bhashya on Kathopanishad “Alas, how unfathomable, inscrutable and variegated is this power of Maya, that every human being, though in reality identical with the supreme Brahman, and is told this again and again by the upanishads, does not realize that truth, but considers himself as the body, mind and senses, even though he is not told so by any one”. 

- Maya is opposed to knowledge, that is, it is destroyed by knowledge

Brahman is the Pure Knowledge, while Atman is the same pure knowledge at the individual level, whit it is being concealed by the Maya. It is because of the ignorance of Maya, the real nature of us as Atman is hidden from us, hence it is termed to be opposed to knowledge.

Same way, it is the realisation of Atman by itself, the Self Realisation that unveils the Maya that conceals the Atman, thereby destroyed by the Atman which is Pure knowledge itself.

- Maya has a positive force giving the impression of its existence

The cause is that which, present, will produce the effect. Existence alone can be the cause of something. Anything that does not exist, can not be the cause of something that exists. Something can not come out of nothing. The whole universe, the materialistic universe, all the objects, the bodily aspects of you and me exists, for which the cause is Maya. So Maya is a positive force giving the impression of its existence through the causation of the materialistic universe through its positive power. But Maya is the illusion, that conceals Brahman which is the real source of the Maya itself, which is illusion through which this illusory materialistic world is created. Such is the power of Maya.

Maya obscures the Reality, it does not allow us to know who we are or it does not allow us to know what the universe is in reality

Maya projects the reality as it is not

Maya cannot be characterised; it cannot be identified as an entity or a phenomenon

Thus, Maya is a complex and complicated phenomena that has been dealt with by Vedanta, particularly Advaita Vedanta in a phenomenal way, as one of the Crown Jewel of the Vedanta itself. Maybe it for this reason Adi Shankara deals with it in his Viveka Chudamani – the Crown Jewel of Discrimination.

This very same crown jewel of Advaita was very scholarly and in great erudition was objected and tried to completely demolish by the great Sri Ramanucharya in his Sree Bhashyam with Seven Objections.

In the next post I will give the Seven Objections and also the replies to the Seven Objections from Advaita perspective and establish the Absolute Tenability of the Seven Untenables of Ramanuja