Brahman's lower nature is ego, which is illusion, and the verse includes materiality in the same category. Brahman's higher nature is that which sustains the Universe. Since the Universe cannot sustain itself, it cannot be Brahman in its higher nature. It is maya. The Universe comes and goes, as illusion does; but Brahman does not come and go.
Again, Brahman is the source of the origin/dissolution of the Universe, which has a beginning/end (ie in Time and Space); Brahman has no beginning and is not in Time or Space. Universe therefore, comes and goes; Brahman is changeless.
The statement of the Gita 'I am the liquidity...radiance...fragrance...etc., is an expression of attributes, but Brahman is attributeless. It must be so, since all characteristics have their origin in That which has no characteristics, and that is the true nature of Brahman:
"Brahman is the only Reality; it is beyond definition in words, the range of sensory perceptions, and the human mind. It is conceived to be boundless Being, ever existent, limitless in space and time, immutable, immaculate, devoid of qualities, attributes, name, or form. It is not subject to birth, continuation, growth, maturity, decay and dissolution, and has nothing similar to it and nothing different from it. It is also described as pure Knowledge. 18"
"It is also regarded as both the efficient and material cause of the visible universe, the all-pervading spirit of the universe, the essence from which all beings are produced and into which they are absorbed. The entire phen- omenal world of beings, qualities, actions, all manifestations, and so on, is said to be an illusory superimposition on the imperishable substratum, which is Brahman."
from: THE ESSENCE OF RIBHU GITA*
http://www.sageramana.org/files/Essence of Ribhu Gita.pdf
But my Self is not in them; they are in My Self.
All this universe is transfixed** by these
three states of being, [ie 'maya']
Composed of the qualities.
It does not recognize Me (this Self),
Who am higher than these, and eternal .
Since this divine Maya of Mine which is constituted by the three qualities
is difficult to cross over,
(therefore) those who take refuge in Me
alone cross over this Maya.
WHAT IS MAYA?
What do the Vedantins mean by maya? First, we know from the Upanishads that it is made of three gunas: tamas, rajas, and sattva. Tamas has its veiling power, avarana shakti in Sanskrit. Rajas has its projecting power, vikshepa shakti in Sanskrit, and sattva has its revealing power, prakasha shakti in Sanskrit. Now this language, "veiling" and "revealing," is the language of perception, not the language of manufacture. You can't make anything out of a guna as the Sankhyans wanted to do. These three gunas, of which maya is said to be made, are just three aspects of a misperception. They are not substances, like wood, stone, or gold, out of which objects could be made. They are simply three aspects of an apparition. In order to mistake a rope for a snake, you must fail to see the rope rightly; that's the veiling power of tamas. Then you must jump to the wrong conclusion; that's the projecting power of rajas. You yourself project the snake. But the length and diameter of the rope are seen as the length and diameter of the snake; that's the revealing power of sattva. If you hadn't seen the rope, you might have jumped to some other wrong conclusion.
The Equations of Maya
To the contrary, I think the verses you provided make clear that the world is illusory, as the highlights I inserted indicate.
Purposeless play is none other than illusion. Nothing is created; nothing destroyed. Lila is always coupled with maya. The world is none other than Brahman, playing ITself as 'The World', but which has lost itself in the world. We are none other than Brahman, which, upon Awakening, is no longer lost in maya, and which sees the world for what it actually is: an illusion.
That analogy doesn't cut it, because wave and water are still seen as water, whereas the rope (ie Brahman) appears as something else, that is 'snake', (ie 'The Universe). IOW, the conditioned mind does not see The Universe for what it is: The Absolute. It only sees it as the material Universe, as it is conditioned by Time, Space, and Causation:
"The Universe is The Absolute, as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation"
Vivekendanda
*The Ribhu Gita forms the sixth section of the Sanskrit work known as Siva Rahasya. It is the teachings of Lord Siva in Mount Kailas to His devotee RIBHU, from whom the Gita derives its name.
** trans·fix
tran(t)sˈfiks/
verb
past tense:
transfixed; past participle:
transfixed
1.
cause (someone) to become motionless with horror, wonder, or astonishment.
"he was transfixed by the pain in her face"
synonyms: mesmerize, hypnotize,
spellbind, bewitch, captivate, entrance, enthrall, fascinate, absorb, enrapture, grip, hook, rivet, paralyze
"she was transfixed by the images on the screen"
We are going to disagree here. There is no sense in the Gita which says that the lower material nature of Brahman is an illusion. The illusion here is not that the world is real, but that the world and it's distinctions are the
only thing that is real, being unable to see it's unified constituent, which is the Self/Brahman.
Again waves of an ocean come and go, but the ocean is eternal.
Further you forget that Brahman can exist both as Saguna Brahman (Brahman with attributes) and Nirguna Brahman (Brahman without attributes). The world is Saguna Brahman, the water of the waves...and it comes from and merges back into Nirguna Brahman (the ocean beneath). Something is being created and destroyed...the
attributes themselves...the nama-rupa and the gunas that are the modes of Brahman as it manifests as the world of phenomena and which are destroyed as the world dissolves back. Clearly these attributes or gunas or nama-rupa are not the Self of Brahman, as they come and go, but they originate from it. Which is what Krishna is saying.
So we have
a) A
real world made up of the gunas or qualities (that come from Brahman but not it's Self) And substantiated by the Self/Brahman. This is the manifest Saguna Brahman.
b) The ground of this world is the
unmanifest Brahman, the Self without qualities, gunas etc. This Nirguna Brahman transcends the world and on it the Saguna Brahman is rooted.
c) The real world dissolves back into unmanifest Brahman when it's gunas/nama-rupa is destroyed and the Self of Saguna Brahman becomes Nirguna again. Similarly the real world emerges from the Nirguna as modes and qualities are superimposed on the Self to form the manifest Saguna Brahman.
This formation, dissolution and transformation of the gunas is the creative Maya or Shakti of Brahman.
d) The
effect is the formation of jiva-atmans embedded in a variegated world. The beguiling transformations of the world, creates the illusion that this differentiated phenomena is the only real thing and people pursue it through the dualities of attraction and repulsion. This
moha is the effect of
Maya. Moha is the delusion, while Maya is the creative-destructive activity that causes this world to exist over and above the transcending Self of Nirguna Brahman.
e) Thus the goal is to
destroy Moha by
e1) clearly understanding the transformative workings of Maya and
e2) Identifying the Brahman/Self hidden within all the phenomena of the world
e3) Realizing the unqualified unmanifest Brahman that transcends it all.
