|| Maya || by Swami Sarvapriyananda

|| Maya || by Swami Sarvapriyananda

|| Maya || by Swami Sarvapriyananda

Oh lead us from the Unreal to the real lead us from darkness unto light leaders from death to immortality Oh peace peace peace good morning this lecture today is the second in a series of talks on Swami Vivekananda's Gani yoga 

so the first one was last month I think it was called our real nature and this one is Maya 

I have never spoken on this subject earlier it's perhaps the most difficult subject that I have ever taken up so be ready to go away with a headache Brahman is very simple 

Maya is complicated swami Vivekananda devoted three whole lectures on Maya in his series of talks on gana yoga in London in fact, the house where he gave those taxes it's still there and 

if you go there they have a blue circle system than in the United Kingdom there it's a heritage place it says the Hindoo philosopher and the monk gave talks here in this house it's there in London man motto not Ganguly one of three of one of Swami Vivekananda's disciples approached him once Swami Vivekananda was very happy with him and said ask for something and I'll give it to you and Monument asked me a question so magnets are not asked I have read your lectures on Maya but 

I want to know about it more fully from you please tell me what is

 

Maya and Swami Vivekananda said ask something else but man mater persisted he said 

if I cannot know this from you from a guru like you then I will never understand it in my life I have got a guru like you and this is something that I want to know in my life then Swami Vivekananda started speaking and Monmouth has his reminiscences we learned about it from there he started speaking after some time man mother said it's as 

if literally not even as 

if literally the world started spinning around him and it dissolved he says he gives an example I don't think it's there in the English translation of his reminiscences in the original Bengal it's there that when you look at a fire and just above a fire that is you know 

if you see the that's because of the heat is a shimmer the world seems to come in and out of focus so the room around him the place around him seemed to vibrate come in and out of focus you know it's as 

if it's disappearing after some time Vivekananda himself disappears his own the man mutters own body has disappeared he's just hearing the voice of the Vacanti and then he bursts out he says he burst out in a high-pitched voice he's saying all this is 

Maya even you what you are doing all this Ramakrishna mission the monastery all your work this is 

|| Maya || by Swami Sarvapriyananda

all Maya and Vivekananda 

so he says this and suddenly he realizes in Bengal in Indian languages, there are different ways of ways of saying you in Old English also there was au and you 

so you say apni to somebody who's senior 

so GU reckoning this is guru he should have said apne but he said to me means you when you say it's too somebody who is your inferior or to a child somebody in any way not certainly not your guru he realized he had said to me to Vivekananda the moment he realized this you know the sense of difference comes and all the world snapped back into place and Vivek and is there sitting at him and looking sitting and looking at him and smiling and where they can't I said you are right this is Maya and 

if you do not like this play of 

Maya then go into the Himalayan fastness and meditate and merge into Brahman but 

if you cannot then come and help in this work unfortunately what we have currently is said monolith has not written that down 

so I don't think I can deliver that to you today to make the world disappear but I think I can reasonably promise you a fairly intense headache today but Vivica andis lectures are there the talks on  Maya 

so today's talk is based on what Vivekananda said about Maya in three lectures I'll try my best to summarize what he has said Vivekananda spoke about Maya in you know the refreshing new way in a very direct way those who have read those lectures you will all never forget and this is 

Maya and this is Maya and this is Maya to understand his approach the refreshing the new the novel in his approach to Maya one must first take a look at the classical approach to Maya now Maya is an ancient word and it is accepted by all schools of just about every school of Indian philosophy Hindu and Buddhist but the way the non-dualistic do items talk about Maya that's what we are going to talk about today that's unique that's different from the other schools in general the schools of Hinduism the Tantra the the the wise novels they all accept

 

Maya as the power of God Shakti 

so the power of God to create and it's real power and God's creation with Maya is a real creation here is this universe God has created this universe this is the way it is understood in the other schools but the this Maya takes on a unique approach in the approach to

 

|| Maya || by Swami Sarvapriyananda

Maya in a greater way Dante is unique in class Advaita Vedanta what is Maya let's quickly take a look at it and then we will go on to Vivekananda's approach to Maya from the literature on Maya is vast is, in fact, there's more written on Maya than on Brahman there's more written on falsity than on the reality we the unique approach to 

Maya in Advaita Vedanta is encapsulated in the central teaching of Advaita Vedanta Brahma Satyam Jagat mithya Jeeva Brahm Havana para brown man alone is the reality the absolute existence absolute knowledge absolute bliss absolute is the only reality then what is this world this pluralistic the world this variegated world which we see spread out before us what is this 

so this is Jagat mithya it's an appearance this metria is another name for 

Maya that it's an appearance of Brahman it's not real in itself what are we then are we real or an appearance Jeeva Bremerhaven opera you are none other than that absolute you do not know yourself if you really knew out yourself you would realize ah hum Brahma has me I am there absolute of which the universe is an appearance 

so this is a unique formulation the nonduelists have this Advaita Vedanta and it got the non-dualistic into no end of trouble because they were immediately fiercely attacked by the other schools the Orthodox schools of Hindi Hindu way other schools of Hinduism the Duellists qualified monist and 

so and so forth, in fact, it led to a tremendous flowering of philosophy

 if we look back upon the history of Indian philosophy, you can see three periods of glorious development tremendous flowering and richness one is at the dawn of Indian philosophy when from the Vedas philosophy emerged darshanam - means philosophy literally means to see Darshana emerged that was the age of the sutra Cara's those who wrote the sutras the aphorism the Naya sutras of Gautama the vaisheshika sutras of Kannada and the yoga sutras which are very famous even now they're studied you know the Patanjali yoga sutras the Sanka sutras of Kapila which are lost the Purva Mimamsa Sutras of Germany and the Brahma sutras of Piazza badriyah Piazza 

so this the age of the sutras that was the beginning of the different schools of philosophy the next great period of development in Indian philosophy came a few centuries later with the emergence of Buddhism so Buddhism was such a strong challenge powerful challenge Petrova Paktia powerful challenge to the Orthodox schools of Hinduism 

so that set off a thousand-year debate I kid you, not 1,000 years from about a couple of hundred years after the Buddha till around the time of Shankar Acharya just after that nearly a thousand years in which the Buddhists attacked the two most precious beliefs of the Hindus the belief in an immortal soul Atma and the Buddhists said uh not man no self and God that there is a God is shorter the Buddhists are agnostic about it they maybe who knows not interested doesn't matter 

so this huge debate it's part of for a thousand years the Hindus trying to defend the theses of an immortal soul and of an eternal God all-powerful creator and the Buddhists attacking them relentlessly and both sides developed it was like a philosophical arms race both the logic developed the philosophy of the language developed the methods of interpretation of the scriptures developed on the Hindu side the Naya School and the poor were mallams a school with the two primary schools which developed a lot of philosophical literature at this time but that does not concern us the next burst of development of Indian philosophy was after Shankar Acharya 

so when the Duellists not it's within Hinduism the duelists attacked in on duelists 

so this continued for about 500 years after Shankar Acharya where they tried to attack the non the adroit an andouille school and most of the attacks were concentrated on the non duelist formulation of 

|| Maya || by Swami Sarvapriyananda

Maya Samaya they immediately saw this is the weak link and this is where the attacks have to be concentrated 

so what was the ad weight of formulation of Maya what is Maya when we started studying at greater Vedanta our introductory textbook was Vedanta Zahra which is a rather boring dry little book of its like a book of definitions it gets used but it gives you a solid foundation for studying classical non-dualism classical Advaita Vedanta in that there is a definition or a description of Maya 

so you have to we have to be had to learn it memorize it remember in that way the point of view Maya is at its core 

Maya is nothing but ignorant Ghanim Agana means ignorance of what our true nature we do not know we are Brahman and hence all the problems so you have to know your Brahman ignorance is the problem 

Maya and Ghanim knowledge is the solution 

so the definition of Maya is the definition of ignorance in Vedanta Zahra and it goes like this Al-Ghanim to ignorant is or Maya is 5:5 things Serkis at bahaminy watch animal explain sadhus at BR Minerva tritium Tribune art mahkum Gianna VOD power open yet king it what does it mean this Maya