I recently came across this profound line in one of our Chinmaya Mission publications:
“We think, live, and move in Maya.”
Though simple and direct, it is a difficult truth to truly understand—and even harder to accept. One of our Acharyas once remarked, “If you thought Brahman was difficult to grasp, wait until you get to Maya.” That struck a chord.
Here is a personal compilation of thoughts—some interlinked, some standalone—that have helped me gain a clearer intellectual understanding of Maya and its intricate play.
At the heart of Vedanta is the teaching that Brahman alone is changeless. Everything else that changes—every name and form—is Maya.
We attempt to understand Maya using the mind, yet the mind itself is part of Maya. The mind is a stream of thoughts—constantly changing, constantly reacting. We’re using a tool that is itself a product of Maya to understand Maya. See the paradox? But mind and intellect are absolutely essential in first understanding and later transcending Maya. We start with purification of mind in our pursuit.
Maya doesn’t imply that this world doesn’t exist. Like many others, I too was skeptical when I first started hearing “This world is an illusion. Only Brahman exists!” The transactional world does exist, and it’s real. But compared to the changeless Brahman, everything in this transactional world changes and it is only an apparent reality. Hence it is said that this world is a play of Maya.
“Maya is nothing but non-apprehension of Brahman leading to mis-apprehension of Brahman as something else” said our great masters. The snake and the rope is a great analogy that helped me understand that the non-apprehension of the rope is what is leading to its mis-apprehension as a snake giving birth to Maya. Another similar analogy is that of the ghost and the post. In both these analogies, all it takes is a little bit of light to reveal the truth (rope and post.) Likewise, knowledge is all it takes to reveal the Truth that is Brahman.
Brahman is the only changeless. We don’t have the instruments to comprehend Brahman, leading to its non-apprehension. This non-apprehension, when intermixed with the vasana-driven ego and mind, leads to its misapprehension—thereby giving it various names and forms.
While the snake-rope analogy explains misapprehension, a better analogy for the dynamic nature of Maya is the movie and the screen. The movie plays for two hours—we laugh, cry, and feel the suspense. Yet, all of it is just images projected on a white screen. When the movie ends, what remains is the screen—untouched. Similarly, the world we experience is a projection on the substratum of Brahman. The drama is real in experience, but it never touches the screen.
If you think you’ve understood Brahman but not Maya, know that you’ve not understood Brahman. Because Brahman and Maya are inseparable. Maya is the expression of Brahman, not a second reality. They are just names and forms that rest on Brahman like waves rest on the ocean.
The promise of Vedanta is liberation here and now– freedom from the rollercoaster of joy and sorrow in this subjective world, otherwise known as Maya. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa beautifully explains this through two categories of Maya: Avidya Maya and Vidya Maya.
Avidya Maya – negative qualities like desires, greed, cruelty etc.
Vidya Maya – positive qualities like spiritual virtues, kindness, purity, love, devotion, etc.
Sri Ramakrishna says that we must first use Vidya Maya to overcome Avidya Maya. Once that is achieved, we must remove the Vidya Maya as well to transcend or rise above Maya and become mayatita. In this state, the illusion of separateness between the ego and Brahman is seen through. We don’t stop engaging with the world. Rather, we move through it with awareness, like a skilled actor in a play, anchored in the changeless Brahman. We think, live, and move in maya with full awareness.
May the Lord and our revered Guru Parampara bless us all with the opportunity—not only to intellectually grasp Brahman and Maya—but to experience that Oneness, fully and deeply.
Om Tat Sat.