The Tricks of Maya (Page 2 of 3)

A characteristic example of attributing importance to that which is unimportant, is the prevalent attitude toward death. When a loved one dies, it usually rouses a feeling of sorrow and loneliness. This sense of grief for the deceased, whom one had been accustomed to seeing so often in the flesh, is, however, rooted in attachment to the form, not the soul of the departed. In his ignorance, man is not aware that even though the form - the outer garment - has vanished, the soul is not dead, has in fact not even passed away; because the soul is imperishable, ever-present, everywhere. The feeling of loneliness, the lingering memory of the beloved, the longing for his presence, the tears of bereavement and sighs of separation - are all due to false valuation; they are the product of Maya.

Few are interested in God for His own sake. If the worldly-minded turn to God at all, it is mostly for their own selfish, mundane purposes. They seek gratification of their cravings, hopes and even spites, through the intervention of a god of their own conceit — or of a deity who is the special fabrication and exclusive monopoly of the church or cult to which they happen to belong.
They do not seek God to satisfy an inner hunger for spiritual Truth. They long for all things except for the only Truth which they ignore as wholly unimportant. They pursue happiness through everything except the Truth of God, the only unfailing source of abiding joy. This distortion of man’s vision into considering as unimportant that which is important, is also the device of Maya.

An example of giving an importance to a thing other than its intrinsic significance, is when rituals, ceremonies and other routine religious practices are considered ends in themselves. They have their own value as means of expression, as vehicles of spiritual conditioning, but as soon as they are permitted or encouraged to assume claims in their own right, they are vested with an importance which does not belong to them and to which they have no rightful claim. When thus clothed by Maya with an importance beyond their true measure, they bind and atrophy life, rather than quicken and help unfold it.

False beliefs too are among the tricks Maya uses to hold the soul in ignorance and bondage. The false beliefs created by Maya are so deep-rooted and powerful that they assume in the average consciousness the status of self-evidence; they masquerade in the garb of veritable truths and are accepted by the mass of mankind without question.

For example, man believes that what he is, is represented by his physical body. It never occurs to him that he might be something other than what seems embodied in his tangible form. Identification with the body is accepted by him instinctively, without further proof. All his mundane senses and his ego-mind constantly attest what he has always regarded as an incontrovertible ‘fact’; and he holds the belief all the more strongly because so sure is he of his premise that he needs no further rational proof to support it.

To give up the belief that he is the body, would involve the renunciation of all his desires pertaining to the physical body, and all the false values spawn-ed by them. That is why the belief that he is his physical body becomes natural to man; it is easy to hold, difficult to uproot. On the other hand, belief that man is something other than his physical body seems unnatural and to call for convincing proof; it is difficult to hold, easy to resist. Yet, when the mind is ultimately freed of all physical desires and attachments, the belief that man is his physical body proves to be utterly false, and the revelation that he is something wholly other than his physical body emerges as the truth. This is equally true of man’s subtle and mental bodies.