Māyā
The power by which the One looks like the many — illusion to dispel, or God's real art?
Māyā names the mysterious power by which the single reality shows up as the endless variety of the world. The word is often translated 'illusion,' but that is only one school's reading. For some it is a beguiling appearance to be seen through; for others it is the genuine, marvelous creative power of God or of consciousness. How a school understands māyā tells you almost everything about how it understands the world.
How it traveled
- Bhagavad-gītāKuru-Pañcāla region · -150explains
- UpadeśasāhasrīKālaḍi (Kaladi) · 710explains
Key passages(19)
Vivekacūḍāmaṇi · Śaṅkara (traditionally ascribed; authorship doubted)
Verily, this divine illusion of Mine, constituted of the Gunas, is difficult to cross over; those who devote themselves to Me alone, cross over this illusion.
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Know then Prakriti (nature) is Maya (art), and the great Lord the Mayin (maker); the whole world is filled with what are his members.
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They do not devote themselves to Me,—the evil-doers, the deluded, the lowest of men, deprived of discrimination by Mâyâ, and following the way of the Asuras.
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Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad · Vedic Revelation (śruti)
'When (in waking and dreaming) there is, as it were, another, then can one see the other, then can one smell the other, then can one speak to the other, then can one hear the other, then can one think
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There are the worlds of the Asuras covered with blind darkness. Those who have destroyed their self (who perform works, without having arrived at a knowledge of the true Self), go after death to those
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