Maya Is Not Illusion
There are territorial waters. So many miles of sea from the coast of this country belongs to that country. You can’t encroach. Do the waves know that? That we are going to enter into the territory of so and so country? Is water on this side of the territorial boundary different from the other? When water flows over this so-called boundary, does it change color?
No. It is one continuous water body.
This is the ignorance that we are talking about. The ignorance called Maya. This is not something that we have acquired by learning or from books. This is something that is built into us as we are born. A defect that we are born with. A manufacturing defect, as we call it.
This is Maya. What is Maya? Maya is nothing but a limitation. It is not an illusion as is commonly understood. Maya is unnatural. Maya is what you are equipped with.
We all use mobile cameras of different MPs — 4 MP, 14 MP. What is the difference between a 4 MP and a 14 MP camera? Clarity of the photo. The photo taken in a 14 MP camera has better clarity or resolution. But at the same time, it occupies more memory space.
For example, if you have 1 GB of memory available with you and your camera is 4 megapixels, you can store 835 photos. Whereas if your camera is 14 MP, you can store only 235 photos.
That means if your hardware has limited capacity, you have to reduce, scale down the power of your input device.
Paramatma’s capacity is infinite. It has all the resources of the entire universe or multitude of universes available to it. But when Paramatma has to occupy a small body as Jeevatma, with a limited memory, a small processor, limited intelligence, then Paramatma has to scale down itself — from a vision that is infinite to a vision that is limited to few miles, from its capacity power to hear everything to hearing within a small range, 20 Hz to 20 kHz. And so on for the other senses as well.
This self-imposed restriction imposed by Paramatma on itself as long as it occupies a small body of limited hardware resources is called Maya. Else the system will crash. Will crash beyond repair.
The capacity to see in a very limited way, to hear in a very limited way, to smell in a very limited way, to taste in a very limited way, and to feel in a very limited way is called Maya. So Maya cannot even be called a manufacturing defect. That is the way it is.
So we are born with a tendency to handle small quantities. We are comfortable dealing in small quantities.
We are happy to have a few houses for ourselves — three or four or ten. We are not comfortable to own fifty thousand houses. Then more than the pleasure of ownership, it becomes a problem. We want to have a few acres of land, a big farm, or to be head of a state or country or maybe the Earth. Beyond that, you stop enjoying it. Even those who run these big institutions — they don’t do it for the pleasure of it. They do it because they have to do it, for many other reasons. There are many dictators who, if out of power, are dead. They will be killed. So they own, they rule, only to avert death.
Still, this capacity to own or rule over is limited. We only want things in small, digestible quantities. If you take more than that, you end up with indigestion.
This tendency is there everywhere. Anything and everything is measured, quantified, and a whole system is created with these measurements. Our modes of transport — the bus, train, flight — they go from one point to another. So many miles. Before the flight leaves, the cabin crew announces, ‘We will go to Mumbai or Delhi or some other destination.’ What will happen if the announcement goes, ‘We will go to… we don’t know where.’ Can we handle it?
We can’t handle the uncertain. We can’t handle the unlimited. We see people suffering a heart attack after winning a lottery. We don’t know how to handle the big. How many of us can handle even an investment portfolio properly? It is your own money. But we look to others — the so-called experts — to manage it.
We can’t manage our own money. We need huge institutions with thousands of people such as the Reserve Bank to manage the money of a country. So your capacity as a Jeevatma is quite limited, and Maya is the method to run you efficiently within these limitations.
The moment you are born, nature has put these restrictions on you — restrictions called Maya. Realization means to know the nature of this Maya. To know that it has got limited functional significance.
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Vishnu Sahasranama
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