True Nature of the Universe: What is Maya?

[godnotgod]

I must have been writing my last post as you were yours, so my apologies if I seemed not to have acknowledged your post in mine. However, in reading it over, I can see how the idea of play and recreation on a grand divine scale can indeed be taking place, and all at once! This assumes, of course, that the manifestation of the worlds has no real serious purpose other than the realilzation of the Brahmanic nature, that nature being that of Absolute Joy. Beyond this, those who propose the idea of lila suggest that the divine essence gets bored with its conditon, and becomes lost within its own maya. Mortal man is none other than the Supreme Identity, but he does not know it. The Christian, it seems, is in total poker-faced denial of the fact!

"Oh, no, Lord! I would never want to be YOU! Heaven forbid!"*

When Jesus stated that he was God, he was crucified for it. Alan Watts suggests that, if only Jesus had been born in India where it is OK to be God, he would have been congratulated for it:

"Oh! You found out! Congratulations!"
*****

There is a story I heard once about a man who died and went to heaven. Knocking on the Pearly Gates, he hears a voice come from within: "Who's there?" asks the voice. "It's me, Lord" answers the man. "Sorry! We don't know any 'me's' here. Go away!" Perplexed, the man leaves. After a week of pondering the problem, he returns, this time knocking a bit more loudly on the Gates. "Who goes there?" asks the voice from within. "It's ME, Lord! You know...ME!...ME!...ME!" "Ho hum. Nope. There are no 'me's' on the roster" Begone!" This time the man goes away for an entire year, deeply pondering the question. Finally, he returns, and knocks on the Gates once more. "Yes? Who is it this time?" asks the voice from within.

"Why, it is none other than YOU, Oh Lord!"

.....at which the Gates swing wide open.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

LOL, thanks for that,..yes that about summarizes it,.. THIS which seeks is THAT which is sought, and THIS which is sought is THAT which seeks,..all else is maya.

But seriously, the maya reality in which the cosmic drama plays out take place, obviously is so by divine design, and so the wisdom developed as a result of the pilgimage through the maze is a prerequisite to understanding what and who one really is.

This little Sufi piece from Jalaluddin Rumi puts it quite succinctly...

I died as a mineral and became a plant;
I died as a plant and rose to animal;
I died as animal and I was a man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man to soar...
With angels blest.
But even from an angel I must pass on:
All except God must perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.

PS. Re Christianity, if those who understand the teaching of Jesus about the underlying oneness of God in man as exemplified in "the Father and I are one" statement, they should also understand that he is teaching that the potential for this realization is for everyone, for he also taught them,.."the kingdom of God is within you", and...."know ye not that ye are temples of the living God", etc..

 

[godnotgod]

LOL, thanks for that,..

Yes, I enjoy that one immensely...

THIS which seeks is THAT which is sought, and THIS which is sought is THAT which seeks,..all else is maya.

Sheri Huber (Zen author) tells us much the same thing:

"That which you are seeking is causing you to seek"

But seriously, the maya reality in which the cosmic drama plays out take place, obviously is so by divine design, and so the wisdom developed as a result of the pilgimage through the maze is a prerequisite to understanding what and who one really is.

Say! You would'nt be suggesting that there is a purpose to it all, now, would you? That is a horse of a different color.
(Great little Sufi piece, BTW)

PS. Re Christianity, if those who understand the teaching of Jesus about the underlying oneness of God in man as exemplified in "the Father and I are one" statement, they should also understand that he is teaching that the potential for this realization is for everyone, for he also taught them,.."the kingdom of God is within you", and...."know ye not that ye are temples of the living God", etc..

Actually, most of what "Jesus" said can be attributed to Yeshua, who actually was a real man, and belonged to the Jewish mystical cult known as the Order of Nazorean Essenes.

See here:

The Order of Nazorean Essenes

and here:

Yeshua before 30 CE

It was one St. Paul who transformed Yeshua and Mithra into the mythical "Jesus", inventing all sorts of new doctrines which had no basis in fact:

The Problem of Paul

Alan Watts clarifies the confusion about the "unique" divinity of Jesus for us:

"The dogma of the Incarnation insists that in Christ, God became man, not a man. That is to say, in Christ, there are two natures, but only one person. The person is divine--God the Son--but it is in hypostatic union with a complete human nature, though not with a human person. Thus, the humanity of Christ is representative of all humanity, and by this means the gifts of the Incarnation are bestowed upon the whole race and not upon the historic Jesus alone."

All of which points to the fact that underneath the public teachings of Yeshua lies the unmistakeable influence of Buddhist and Hindu thought.

To further complicate matters, it seems that the teachings of the Nazorean Essenes was a three-tiered structure. The early Christians who broke from them unwittingly took with them only the first of the three tiers, not understanding the deeper, intuitive mysteries within the cult. This may account for the fact that Christianity is such an effervescent, outward but mostly superfical show, with heavy emphasis on evangelism and conversion.

 

[godnotgod]

I died as a mineral and became a plant;
I died as a plant and rose to animal;
I died as animal and I was a man.
Why should I fear?
When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die as man to soar...
With angels blest.
But even from an angel I must pass on:
All except God must perish.
When I have sacrificed my angel soul,
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.

To the rational mind, this process all seems to take place in linear time, but to the awakened mind, it all takes place in this eternal Present Moment, where no time, no history, exists. So to "become what no mind ever conceived" is not in some faraway future, but now, and, if you really think about this one, we become that which we already are. That is to say, "what no mind ever conceived" is exactly who and what we are at this exact moment. So perhaps it is not the inconceivability as to how man eventually becomes God, but how God becomes man. We are the very divine nature, Brahman itself, but because the divine nature is in complete union with the Ordinary, we fail to see and realize it. We don't see that the Ultimate Reality actually is the mineral, plant, animal, and man himself, because we are always seeking beyond the Ordinary, beyond the reality we find ourselves presently immersed in. We fail to realize that the very thing we seek is exactly what is the cause of our seeking. To see that the seeker and what is sought are One, is to realize one's own divine nature.

To fail to see this union is to fail to see that " the universe is The Absolute as seen through the glass of time, space, and causation".

Why do we fail to see the divine nature in all things? Because we are looking at all things as objects, as artifacts, as "created things", which have no life of their own other than that given to them by their "Creator", in the same sense that a pot has no life other than that given to it by the potter*. The atheist, of course, does not even see a conscious creative force behind all things.

"God became man that man might become God"
Athanasian Creed

*...or that Adam and Eve came from the dust of the Earth and came to life only after God breathed his life into them from the outside. They, and we too, are nothing more than "create-ures", artifacts made by the hand of a powerful divine being.

Contrast this idea that the divine creative force comes from within, and unfolds itself from the inside out.

 

[Satsangi]

This is the practical definition of Maya that I like- "bad Maya" is anything the creates obstacles in one achieving God and that Maya is to be discraded; if Maya helps you in achieving God- it is a "good Maya." For example your ears can be used to hear God's leela or some other rubbish talk.
Regards

 

[zenzero]

Friends,

Repeating a post had posted on another thread:

Animals are able to do this i.e. understand dangers, earthquakes, sunami, etc. because they are in harmony with nature/existence.
When the individual mind [thoughts are *stilled* then the individual automatically is in union with existence and that is exactly what all religion which are ways or paths to this direction.
Each individual as ULTRA sensory receivers which can catch certain wavelengths and so each animals can sense some wavelengths which is what consciousness is all about. Humans are not conscious and no not connected and so not able to understand those factors BUT they are just lying dormant and so each human is a potential god and so in sanatan dharma each form of existence is a god.
Rgds love being chemical. Chemical is just one aspect which will be ineffective over distance [space] but it could be emotional which you could be affected by through words over the net. Reactions would again depend on DESIRES which awakens such receptors to respond and sometimes become overactive [without control ] so rapes gets committed.
Finally the only way out for quantum to take that LEAP is only by studying the MIND and THOUGHTS rest will fall in place on its own.
Love & rgds

Maya/illusion is a reality BUT for another PLANE. They are as real as others except the tools to measure *no-thought* zone has not yet been developed.
The reference of thousands of gods in sanatan dharma[had once heard it is 33 crores or 3,300,00,000] by meditators is not mythology but a science of another level its just that each form has different ULTRA SENSORY receptors which can catch such signals. When the human form STILL their THOUGHTS they connect with existence like other forms [animals] and become conscious of signals which are waves from other bodies around and become gods of that. Like we could have a god of weather who receives signals of weather and can forecast the coming weather.
Bruce Lee too was a god of defense which most missed.
finally in short MAYA/ILLUSION are only such because of lack of consciousness as in real life too wave patterns create illusions so too such illusions exists in larger scale throughout the universe and that requires a different set of perceptions which only opens when the thoughts are stilled and the individual is in union with the rest.
Love & rgds

 

[santdasji]

One which obstructs the mind in any form of worship of God is called ‘Maya’

 

[godnotgod]

One which obstructs the mind in any form of worship of God is called ‘Maya’

But is'nt God him/her/it self responsible for Maya in the first place? Maya (illusion) plus Lila (divine play) work together to create the illusory effect. The important thing is to appreciate the quality of the illusion, but not be taken in by it.

It has been said that, should one come face to face with the Devil, one should not be afraid, but to compliment him on the quality of his illusion.

Many statues of the Buddha are shown with one hand upheld, palm facing outward (mudra). With this gesture, he is saying: 'Fear not. What you are witnessing, as real as it may seem, is nothing more than One Big Act.

Maya is created by Brahman for sheer 'sport'.

[Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that it wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible. Hence, there can be no purpose of Brahman in creating the world. The world is a mere spontaneous creation of Brahman. It is a Lila, or sport, of Brahman. It is created out of Bliss, by Bliss and for Bliss. Lila indicates a spontaneous sportive activity of Brahman as distinguished from a self-conscious volitional effort. The concept of Lila signifies freedom as distinguished from necessity.
—Ram Shanker Misra, The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo

Lila - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Onkara]

HI
I would be interested if you have a link explaning that Mudra of palms?

I agree, the illusion is only an illusion whilst it is believed to be real. When it is known as Brahman and that its nature is change, then the illusion does not have its hold. Instead all is verily Brahman.

 

[Desert Snake]

Yes, I enjoy that one immensely...



Sheri Huber (Zen author) tells us much the same thing:

"That which you are seeking is causing you to seek"



Say! You would'nt be suggesting that there is a purpose to it all, now, would you? That is a horse of a different color.
(Great little Sufi piece, BTW)

Actually, most of what "Jesus" said can be attributed to Yeshua, who actually was a real man, and belonged to the Jewish mystical cult known as the Order of Nazorean Essenes.

See here:

The Order of Nazorean Essenes

and here:

Yeshua before 30 CE

It was one St. Paul who transformed Yeshua and Mithra into the mythical "Jesus", inventing all sorts of new doctrines which had no basis in fact:

The Problem of Paul

Alan Watts clarifies the confusion about the "unique" divinity of Jesus for us:

"The dogma of the Incarnation insists that in Christ, God became man, not a man. That is to say, in Christ, there are two natures, but only one person. The person is divine--God the Son--but it is in hypostatic union with a complete human nature, though not with a human person. Thus, the humanity of Christ is representative of all humanity, and by this means the gifts of the Incarnation are bestowed upon the whole race and not upon the historic Jesus alone."

All of which points to the fact that underneath the public teachings of Yeshua lies the unmistakeable influence of Buddhist and Hindu thought.

To further complicate matters, it seems that the teachings of the Nazorean Essenes was a three-tiered structure. The early Christians who broke from them unwittingly took with them only the first of the three tiers, not understanding the deeper, intuitive mysteries within the cult. This may account for the fact that Christianity is such an effervescent, outward but mostly superfical show, with heavy emphasis on evangelism and conversion.

Jesus is Spanish for English Joshua, other variants Yeshua, Yehoshua. It's just a language difference.

 

[Chewbarker1054]

The idea of Maya causes many problems and Shri Ramanuja challeneged the traditonal view of Maya/ Avidya. in his Seven Great Untenables

 

[godnotgod]

Jesus is Spanish for English Joshua, other variants Yeshua, Yehoshua. It's just a language difference.

Oh, no, no, no! It is FAR more significant than a mere superficiality! The name 'Yeshua' actually has a meaning, while that of 'Jesus' has no meaning whatsoever:

'Yeshua is the original Aramaic proper name for Jesus the Nazarene, who lived from about 6 B.C.E. to 27 C.E. (A.D.) The word "Jesus" is actually a mis-transliteration of a Greek mis-transliteration. The Emperor Constantine even mistook Jesus for Apollo, the son of the Greek god Zeus. In Hebrew Yeshua means Salvation while the name Jesus has no intrinsic meaning in English whatsoever.'

more here:
Yeshua, the real name of Jesus


'Yeshua bar Yosef (Yeshua, son of Joseph) is the original Aramaic name for Jesus the Nazarene. His parents, siblings, disciples, and followers called him by that name. The name "Jesus" is a misspelling and mispronunciation that resulted from the translation of Yeshua's name after his death, first into the Greek Iesous (pronounced "ee-ay-SUS"), and then from the Greek Iesous into the Latin Jesus. No one during Yeshua's life (prior to 30 CE) ever uttered the name, "Jesus." The letter "j" wasn't in the English language until the seventeenth century, so even in English, no one spoke the name "Jesus" until after that time.'

Yeshua before 30 CE

But that's not all. Yeshua was the real man, but his teachings did NOT include those of a virgin birth, a bodily resurrection, nor the eating of flesh and blood, whether symbolic or actual. It was St. Paul who overwrote the teachings of Yeshua with those of the Roman Mithra, which DID include such doctrines, as a device to lure thousands of pagans into his new religion. The key was the promise of eternal life. Modern orthodox Christians follow Pauline doctrine, not Yeshua's original teachings.

The Catholic Church did much the same thing when it 'adopted' Tonantzin, the Aztec Goddess of Fertility, and transformed her into Our Lady of Guadalupe Hidalgo as a means to lure/convert millions of indigenous Indios into Christianity.

 

[godnotgod]

The idea of Maya causes many problems....

It is due to a flaw in the mind. The problem is not with maya, but with the mind itself.

 

[godnotgod]

What is the nature of maya?
Professor V. Krishnamurthy

[original article has been edited for clarity. Source of original is provided at the end of this article]

Is maya [illusion] real or imaginary?

Unless maya is already present, neither concealment nor projection can take place.

Ultimate Reality is beyond space and time. Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen. In the Absolute itself, there is neither space, nor time nor causation.

The only relevant question that you can ask about maya is about its nature and final destiny. Examination will show that maya is neither real nor unreal.

`I am ignorant' is a common expression, within anybody's experience. Hence maya is not completely unreal. But it disappears with the onset of knowledge. So it is not real either. Thus it is different from both the real and the unreal. It cannot be defined one way or the other. It is in this sense that the world of perception, the common world of experience, cannot be rejected out of hand as totally false, nor can it be taken to be totally real because it suffers contradiction at a higher level of experience. It is real in the empirical sense and unreal in the absolute sense.

This is also the case with a dream. For the dreamer, the dream is real. The dream and similarly the perceptible universe is not falsehood but comparative unreality. It is not total non-existence like a unicorn but it is midway between the absolute truth of Ultimate Reality and the absolute falsehood of a unicorn.

One analogy to explain the peculiar relationship between Ultimate Reality and the universe is the relationless relationship of the rope that is mistaken for the snake, because of poor lighting. The rope appears as a snake no doubt, but actually there is no snake there, ever.

The second analogy that is used in the literature is the appearance of water in a mirage. And the third one is that of the dreamer and his dream. Each of these three analogies has its own limitation in explaining the relationship between brahman, which is invisible, and the universe, which is visible. Brahman is the rope; the visible universe is the snake. What appears as the universe is not really the universe. When spiritual illumination takes place we will know that what was there all the time was only brahman. .

The three analogies are not however just three analogies in place of one. There is a gradation, says Ramana Maharshi. First it may be questioned, with reference to the analogy of the rope and the snake that when the lighting situation improves the appearance of the snake is no more there, whereas, in the case of brahman versus universe, even after learning that brahman is the substratum of truth, and the universe is only a superimposition like the snake on the rope, we still continue to see the universe; it has not disappeared!

For this the Maharishi wants you to go to the analogy of the mirage. Once you understand it is the mirage and no watershed, the appearance of water is no more there. But now there is another objection: 'Even after knowing that there is only brahman and the universe is only an appearance, one gets certain wants fulfilled from this appearance of a universe: one gets one's hunger satisfied, thirst quenched and so on. But the water in the mirage does not quench one's thirst; so to that extent the analogy is inappropriate'.

The analogy of the dream meets this objection, says the Maharishi. The dreamer has his thirst quenched in the dream. The thirst itself is a dream thirst and it is quenched by drinking (dream) water in the dream; so also the wants that one feels in this universe like hunger and thirst are also quenched by corresponding objects in this universe. Thus in this sense the analogy of the dream is reasonably perfect. Maybe that is why Shankara uses the analogy of the dream so emphatically to describe the reality or unreality of the universe.

In Advaita the concept of reality is always comparative. Relative to materials, things made out of the materials are unreal. In other words if a bucket is made out of plastic, the bucket is unreal relative to the plastic. It is the cause that is `more real' than the effect. The cause of the world versus the world itself gives us a comparison about their relative reality. When we say that the universe is unreal, we mean that it is unreal as the universe, but it is surely real as brahman, its cause.



In order to explain this relative unreality the theory of superimposition is meticulously worked out by Shankara. While the snake is superimposed on the rope, the rope undergoes no aberration or modification in the process. It is the same rope all the time. What appears to you is only in your mind. The visible universe is just a perishable (kShara) superimposition on brahman. Brahman does not undergo any change in the process. All the time brahman remains as brahman, the imperishable (akShara) substratum. This is where the nirguNa (attributeless) character of brahman is effectively applied by Shankara to his explanation of this mysterious relationship.

This phenomenon of brahman not being visible but something else, the universe, being visible, is exactly what the term `mAyA' means. It does two things. It hides brahman from you. Simultaneously it projects the universe to you.

The declaration that this is what is happening comes forth from the Lord Himself in Gita IX - 5, 6. 'Everything that is perceptible is pervaded and permeated by Me, who is unmanifested. All the beings are established in Me but not I in them; they are not in Me either, this is my divine yoga.'. He remains unmanifested while what is visible is basically a permeation by him. While he remains unchanged, and imperceptible, the universe is what is perceptible. Everything visible is supported by Him as the only substratum, whereas He Himself is not supported by anything. He is His own support.

The snake appears on the rope, the rope does not undergo any change, but the snake is supported by the rope, (meaning, without the rope there is no snake). But in reality the snake was never there and so it is also true to say that the snake is not in the rope. To the question: Where is the snake?, the answer is: it is in the rope. To the question, Is the snake there?, the answer is, there is no snake, the snake was never in the rope. It is in this strain that the Lord gives out, almost in the same breath, what appears to be two contradictory statements. Everything is in Me; and nothing is in Me. This is the cosmic mystery of the existence of the Universe. It is and is not - sad-asad-vilakshaNa, mAyA!

Original source:
What is the nature of maya? Professor V. Krishnamurthy.

 

[Desert Snake]

Oh, no, no, no! It is FAR more significant than a mere superficiality! The name 'Yeshua' actually has a meaning, while that of 'Jesus' has no meaning whatsoever:

'Yeshua is the original Aramaic proper name for Jesus the Nazarene, who lived from about 6 B.C.E. to 27 C.E. (A.D.) The word "Jesus" is actually a mis-transliteration of a Greek mis-transliteration. The Emperor Constantine even mistook Jesus for Apollo, the son of the Greek god Zeus. In Hebrew Yeshua means Salvation while the name Jesus has no intrinsic meaning in English whatsoever.'

more here:
Yeshua, the real name of Jesus


'Yeshua bar Yosef (Yeshua, son of Joseph) is the original Aramaic name for Jesus the Nazarene. His parents, siblings, disciples, and followers called him by that name. The name "Jesus" is a misspelling and mispronunciation that resulted from the translation of Yeshua's name after his death, first into the Greek Iesous (pronounced "ee-ay-SUS"), and then from the Greek Iesous into the Latin Jesus. No one during Yeshua's life (prior to 30 CE) ever uttered the name, "Jesus." The letter "j" wasn't in the English language until the seventeenth century, so even in English, no one spoke the name "Jesus" until after that time.'

Yeshua before 30 CE

But that's not all. Yeshua was the real man, but his teachings did NOT include those of a virgin birth, a bodily resurrection, nor the eating of flesh and blood, whether symbolic or actual. It was St. Paul who overwrote the teachings of Yeshua with those of the Roman Mithra, which DID include such doctrines, as a device to lure thousands of pagans into his new religion. The key was the promise of eternal life. Modern orthodox Christians follow Pauline doctrine, not Yeshua's original teachings.

The Catholic Church did much the same thing when it 'adopted' Tonantzin, the Aztec Goddess of Fertility, and transformed her into Our Lady of Guadalupe Hidalgo as a means to lure/convert millions of indigenous Indios into Christianity.

Interesting. Thanks for the information and opinions.