maya, illusion

It is a nice article. Confusing because the writer has stuffed many examples in it. A simple solitary example is that when you prick your finger with a pin, blood oozes out. Now look at the pin, or say go into the pin. There are innumerable energy points (sub-atomic particles) at huge distances from each other moving with high speeds, the position of these cannot be determined. Same with the finger, same with the blood. Nothing touched anything else, Only electrical disturbances. What would you think? What is real - the finger, pin or blood. Nothing is. All sense of reality is given to us by limitation of our senses and evolution.
Yeah, at the worldly level, they are all there and we have to act accordign to the requirements of our perceived reality. This lower level of pragmatic reality is known as 'Vyavaharika' in Hinduism. The sub-atomic particles, energy points and their changes are in the higher level of reality, that we term as 'Parmarthika' (absolute). There is no pin, no finger and no blood in 'Paramarthika'.
Oh, am I talking of 'maya' or quantum mechanics? But the reality is like that. :)
 
One day one of Vivekananda's disciples approached him. Vivekananda was very happy with this disciple and said to him, "Ask me for something, and I shall give it to you."

The disciple said, "I have read your lectures on Maya and I want to know more about what it is."

Vivekananda replied, "Ask me for something else."

______________________________

Maya can be difficult to describe. Vivekananda has described it as time/space/causation. I agree with that assessment.

I understand it as the illusory reality that keeps living beings from realizing their true nature as Brahman.

Imagine you're dreaming. Your character in the dream doesn't realize s/he's dreaming, and is ignorant to the fact that their true nature is the person asleep in a bed creating this dream reality. That is what I typically use as a rudimentary description for Maya.

Here is one of my favorite talks Vivekananda gives on Maya given by him in London in 1896: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_...ekananda/Volume_2/Jnana-Yoga/Maya_and_Freedom

Here is a great lecture given by Swami Sarvapriyananda, the head of the Vedanta Society of New York:

 
I cannot listen to the video (because of my hearing problem, saves me time also. The video is 1 hour and 19 min. long). My explanation will not have the usual Hindu ideas, it will be scientific - How evolution guided the development of our sensory organs and perceptions, how the sense of 'I' develops in the womb and what brain makes of the inputs of sensory organs.

Hey, Salix, you have followed me here. Welcome to interfaith Forums.
 
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SalixIncendium said:
One day one of Vivekananda's disciples approached him. Vivekananda was very happy with this disciple and said to him, "Ask me for something, and I shall give it to you."

The disciple said, "I have read your lectures on Maya and I want to know more about what it is."

Vivekananda replied, "Ask me for something else."

______________________________

Maya can be difficult to describe. Vivekananda has described it as time/space/causation. I agree with that assessment.

I understand it as the illusory reality that keeps living beings from realizing their true nature as Brahman.

Imagine you're dreaming. Your character in the dream doesn't realize s/he's dreaming, and is ignorant to the fact that their true nature is the person asleep in a bed creating this dream reality. That is what I typically use as a rudimentary description for Maya.

Here is one of my favorite talks Vivekananda gives on Maya given by him in London in 1896: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_...ekananda/Volume_2/Jnana-Yoga/Maya_and_Freedom

Here is a great lecture given by Swami Sarvapriyananda, the head of the Vedanta Society of New York:

Click to expand...

Greetings Incendium, just wanted to say welcome to the list. Here's hoping you will find this list (as I have) to be full of many things, not the least of which is spiritual warmth. Hope to get around to watching the video a little later. Any friend of Aup's is a friend of ours.

edit: Being by nature curious, I was just wondering from what other place/list you came from. You don't have to answer of course, only if you feel safe doing so.
 
Is there also the element of 'glamour' -- of form over function? The pursuit of glamour and appearance, perhaps deflecting from the root values?
 
RJM Corbet said:
Is there also the element of 'glamour' -- of form over function? The pursuit of glamour and appearance, perhaps deflecting from the root values?
Click to expand...

Probably not my place to reply here, but this is an open discussion forum. I think there is a glamour and appearance of the outward forms, but the inner, spiritual world also has it's glamour. That glamour far outshines the one found in outward appearance, but it takes a long time for us to fall out of love with all things earthly and in love with the spiritual. Many small deaths must be experienced IMO before we reach that point. At some point, hopefully we become dead (more consistently) to the world (outward) and alive to the spirit (inner).
 
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stranger said:
Probably not my place to reply here, but this is an open discussion forum.
Click to expand...
Of course. Why would you think that?

I'm not sure what I mean really: but in the sense of expending much effort and energy on a better car, or better wristwatch -- not for better function, but for better form? Glamour deceives and causes wasted life energy, which could be operating in more useful ways -- or more 'skillfully' in Theravada terms -- while the valuable years of human incarnation pass wasted?
 
RJM Corbet said:
Of course. Why would you think that?

I'm not sure what I mean really: but in the sense of expending much effort and energy on a better car, or better wristwatch -- not for better function, but for better form? Glamour deceives and causes wasted life energy, which could be operating in more useful ways -- or more 'skillfully' in Theravada terms -- while the valuable years of human incarnation pass wasted?
Click to expand...

Yes, I agree, many valuable years can be wasted but it is the finish that counts. The wasted time can point us toward the more skillfull ways, as having exhausted all other avenues and still lacking spiritual satisfaction, we finally find that which has eluded us for all those years. This is often found, ironically, in the small things, the little things we have overlooked in our pursuit of earthly glamour.
 
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stranger said:
Yes, I agree, many valuable years can be wasted but it is the finish that counts. The wasted time can point us toward the more skillfull ways, as having exhausted all other avenues and still lacking spiritual satisfaction, we finally find that which has eluded us for all those years.
Click to expand...
Nothing is ever wasted really -- it just feels that way sometimes?
stranger said:
This is often found, ironically, in the small things, the little things we have overlooked in our pursuit of earthly glamour.
Click to expand...
Yes. Most true. Thank you. That's a wisdom
 
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RJM Corbet said:
Is there also the element of 'glamour' -- of form over function? The pursuit of glamour and appearance, perhaps deflecting from the root values?
Click to expand...
That is what Buddha warned against in Kesamutti Sutta (aka Kalama Sutta):

"nor upon another's seeming ability (bhabba-rūpatāya),
nor upon the consideration, 'The monk is our teacher' (samaṇo no garū)"
stranger said:
I agree, many valuable years can be wasted but it is the finish that counts.
Click to expand...
Time is precious. We only have that much. Wasted time also counts.
 
Aupmanyav said:
I cannot listen to the video (because of my hearing problem, saves me time also. The video is 1 hour and 19 min. long). My explanation will not have the usual Hindu ideas, it will be scientific - How evolution guided the development of our sensory organs and perceptions, how the sense of 'I' develops in the womb and what brain makes of the inputs of sensory organs.

Hey, Salix, you have followed me here. Welcome to interfaith Forums.
Click to expand...

I looked for a transcription of this lecture, but I struggle to find one that isn't incomplete or poorly written. If you have the means and the time, it is a powerful lecture, so I highly recommend it. If there was only one lecture by Sarvapriyananda that was worth my time, this one would be it. I've listened to it more than once.

Thanks for the welcome. :)
 
stranger said:
Greetings Incendium, just wanted to say welcome to the list. Here's hoping you will find this list (as I have) to be full of many things, not the least of which is spiritual warmth. Hope to get around to watching the video a little later. Any friend of Aup's is a friend of ours.

edit: Being by nature curious, I was just wondering from what other place/list you came from. You don't have to answer of course, only if you feel safe doing so.
Click to expand...

Hi stranger. Thanks for the warm welcome.

I'm not sure if mention of other forums is permitted here, but @RJM Corbet did mention where I came from in my introductions thread.
 
RJM Corbet said:
Is there also the element of 'glamour' -- of form over function? The pursuit of glamour and appearance, perhaps deflecting from the root values?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I would call it 'glamour,' though I can see how one my refer to it as such. As I see it, it's attachment and desire for the pursuit of worldly things (which I suppose could be considered 'glamour') that keeps one in ignorance of one's true nature as Brahman.
 
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