On the world being ‘Maya’, an illusion

In a burst of spirituality and a desire to understand my own religion, I have taken up reading (and importantly trying to understand) the Bhagwad Gita, and in this post I’ve just decided to touch upon 1 aspect that has long confused me, the concept of ‘Maya’.

‘Maya’ a fundamental principle in the Gita, states that the world is an Illusion. I never really understood what this even meant. As a child I would often wonder about this – I felt quite solid to myself, as did my parents and friends. The world around was also quite solid – from the trees to the vehicles to the taste of an ice cream.

My thoughts and dreams were certainly an illusion, for they were in my mind and not really ‘real’. But what of the external world? If everything that I perceived felt real enough, and were perceived by everyone around me, what then was Maya?

After pondering on the Gita, I am beginning to grasp at what is really meant by referring to the world as being “Maya”. Let me try and articulate my understanding using an example:

It is night and a person is walking back to his village with the aid of a torch. He is alone, and on the edges of a forest adjoining his village. He passes under a Banyan tree and hears a rustle in the leaves of the tree, and immediately stops, trying to see what caused the rustling. He is not able to see clearly, but thinks there is something up there, for he can make out a face in the flickering torch light. This person’s ‘personal reality’ is that he’s now:

1.       About to interact with a Ghost / Dayan (witch) which stay in the Banyan trees and attack and possess lonely passers-by by jumping onto their shoulders. His mind goes into high gear, recalling all the ghost stories he’s heard of, the horrors of such evil forces, and if he has a fighting spirit, any possible protection.

2.       Caught the attention of a monkey in the tree, and he needs to be careful of his possessions lest the monkey jump on him and take them away. He will grip his stick tightly, probably tighten the bag around his shoulders and start walk carefully away. Alert but not really in panic mode

3.       About to be made the butt of a prank by the village kids who are always climbing trees and scaring people. He would probably get irritated, call out a warning to the boy hiding up in the tree and after letting out a couple of choice abuses, would walk on, with the grim satisfaction of having got the better of the village boys.

In each of the 3 possible situations, the ‘personal reality’ is what was perceived by the person standing under that tree, alone in the night, in the edges of a forest. His reality was based on his experiences, the stories he’s been told and his belief systems.

Scaling this up, every person in the world lives in their own personal reality, giving meaning and definition to everything that happens around them. The meaning given is based on their own experiences, attitudes and personal biases. Essentially, there are as many realities as there are people in this world.

This is what the Gita is trying to call out – that the reality you believe to be living in is based on your own perceptions and thus is essentially ‘Maya’, an illusion. So, through awareness, try and discriminate between the truth and ‘Maya’.