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Spiritual Concepts Series, Part 4

Read the other articles in this series:

Spiritual Concepts Series, Part One — Karma

Spiritual Concepts Series, Part Two — Mushin, Wu Wei, and Sahaja

Spiritual Concepts Series, Part Three — Rebirth

Translation from language to language is never clean. Nuances, and sometimes complete meanings, can’t always be expressed from one language to another. This series of articles takes ‘spiritual’ terminology from various traditions and aids us in translating the concepts so that they help guide us toward Awakening. These translations are not intended to be more ‘correct’ than other translations — but they are designed to help us see how these ideas can guide us toward Awakening.

Imagination

Human beings are experts at imagination. When we were young, we imagined all sorts of adventurous things. Perhaps your dolls came alive and enacted dramatic life events. Perhaps you picked up a stick and turned into a sword or gun as you marched off to battle.

As we grow up, our fantasy worlds become more sophisticated. Some of the most advanced ones are today’s multi-player online video games (think EverQuest), where you can own land, hold conversations, and gain prestige.

If we consider ourselves sane, we realize that all these imaginary worlds are just that – imaginary. And we might feel pity or scorn for those who take them seriously, and let their marriage or career fall apart just so that they can continue to play their imaginary games.

We know the difference between fantasy and reality.

Right?

But thousands of years ago, the Hindus said something startling. They told us that our everyday world – the world we all take for ‘reality’, is itself imaginary. They called it ‘Maya’.

This Maya is a world that can be both terrible and beautiful. It is the ‘illusion’ in which we all take part. An illusion so powerful that people live and die according to its tides and currents.

All-Encompassing Maya

Even a little time spent in reflection will make it clear to us that most of what we consider ‘real’, such as money, our system of time, and our language, are nothing but human conventions. We could change these conventions quite easily, if only we all agreed. Money, for instance, has no meaning or value unless both parties exchanging it agree that it’s valuable.

In this way, much of our culture is nothing but a game – a game whose rules we’ve all agreed to. Because we accept the ‘reality’ of money, we can suffer real-life consequences if we don’t have enough. In the game of life, where almost everyone agrees with the rules (as is the case with money), we will actually restrict food or shelter to a ‘player’ who doesn’t have enough money, and thus people will starve and die. Not because there is not enough room or enough food, but because of the intricacies of the ‘game of money’.

But Maya teaches us that our illusion runs even deeper. Maya tells us that not only are things like money and language illusory, but so are things like people, death, and even ‘me’.

Entering Hell

Though Maya can at times be beautiful, it more often than not creates immense problems for us. We’ve already pointed out one problem in the case of money. But imagine what happens in the case of other people.

You see, the truth of any person is that they are acting as they are acting right Now. If a friend calls me up and is yelling, they are yelling. If we could see people manifesting Just As They Are, we’d never be able to be angry, offended, or upset with them. But the truth is that we have ideas of who our friends are. In effect, we’ve created a fantasy – an illusion – around each person in our lives. When this particular person calls me up yelling, I might think – Brad is so over-dramatic! Why is he always taking things out on other people? What a jerk! I might remember other times he has yelled at me, and think – This is the last straw! I’m not going to put up with this any longer! Soon I’m angry at him in return, and the phone call turns into a fight. After he hangs up, I might repeat in my head, over and over, portions of the conversation, and continue to create a more developed idea of who Brad is.

But this idea colors all my future interactions with Brad. Soon, I’m completely unable to see Brad manifesting As He Is, and am only able to see my idea of him.

Watch people’s interactions. You can see it very readily in married couples or others who interact on a regular basis. These folks don’t know each other at all – they only see their ideas of each other. Often, their relationships are full of misunderstandings and misinterpretations, because they are unable to see the reality of the other person’s actions.

The tragic consequence is that we have people saying “I love you”, when what they are really saying is “I love my idea of you, and if you don’t continue to act according to that idea, I’m going to get upset with you.”

In this way we create a hell for ourselves. Unable to see the reality unfolding in front of us all the time, we project our ideas over the world and get upset when the world doesn’t conform. The more we learn to project ideas, the more the world misbehaves, and the more terrible our hell becomes. Sometimes we can create new ideas which conform, at least a little better, to the world’s true behavior. Sometimes, if we play the game right, we can ‘win’ – but only for a while. In the end, the rules of our game say that all of us will die, and that age, sickness, and loss will attack us. With gain comes the possibility of loss, and with happiness comes the fear that happiness will leave us. This is the classic game of duality. This is Maya.

Beautiful Maya

Today, more than ever, Maya is a valuable concept for us. If we can come to see Maya for what it is, the game suddenly turns around, and the possibility of creating a hell evaporates.

Imagine that you loved to play those multi-player online games, but you didn’t feel the need to ‘win’. You just loved to play. You could amass huge tracts of lands, become a great leader, and be the richest player in the game. Or you could be a wanderer, with no possessions at all. If you were wealthy and you lost everything, you’d simply wander off and start having conversations with interesting people. If you gained a vast treasure, you’d buy yourself a palace and have musicians sing for you all day long. If you died, you’d just start over, or find a different game.

The point here is that you’re not attached to any certain outcome, and thus you’re able to enjoy wherever you are. You understand that it’s a game, and thus you can have fun. It would even be a little puzzling to you that someone else could get upset if they ‘lost’.

What if we could see life like this? If we could enjoy playing, no matter what the game was like? We might have cancer and be dying, or we might have ten million dollars and our own private island in the Caribbean. Either would be an amazing experience.

But we can’t do this. We’d all take the island over the cancer. Why? Because we truly believe that this game is real, and thus we have ideas of what is good and what is bad. We take it all very seriously, because we have a basic misunderstanding of what’s going on. We believe in our ideas – in Maya – so strongly that we will get extremely emotionally involved. We can’t see that it’s the same as getting mad at a video game.

Yes, even Death, the great and feared ‘reality’ that lurks at the end of our lives, is nothing but an illusion. Why? Because YOU are an illusion – just another idea, crafted and shaped into something you take for reality. If you see that You are just an idea, then what is there to die except for that idea? You can learn more about death here.

If we pierce the veil of Maya, we can see the world as it really is, and its true beauty will be apparent. We won’t lose the ability to play the game – indeed, we’ll be able to play it more effectively – but we will lose the ability to get upset and frustrated with life, because we will no longer be expecting life to conform to our ideas.

If we can see the world Just As Is, Maya becomes truly beautiful.

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