4 May 2008 —
Question
Q57: Maya or Sacredness?
Question 57:
“For you, does spirituality mean perceiving things around us as ‘Maya’ (illusion), or seeing all as sacred forms of the divine?”
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Both. We should try to realise that our present outlook towards the world is immersed in illusion and should try to change it to see everybody as sacred forms of divine. To practice this continuously is difficult bcoz the way we were leading our lives till today was not like this. But we should try to practice with the everflowing help of Amma.
Trying to use Amma’s teachings about discrimination, the Maya and the sacred presence aspects are not either-or. What we see with our gross eyes is illusion because they only mark the presence of the real thing – that is the divine form. At this stage we know it intellectually but if we gain the grace of God we’ll really see then.
Divine takes the form of Maya, so either way can be seen both as Divine and illusion at the same time hence the whole confusion for us humans who’s third eye is not open.
During hopeless or dejected times in my life, I perceive the world as an illusion and for most of the time I see everything around me as sacred. It is kind of easy to see everything as an illusion than seeing everything as a sacred forms of the divine. When a pest eats away your house (termite for example), it is difficult to see it as the divine.
But, one thing I can never understand or perceive is the fact that everything happening in the world is divine and beautiful. For example, A young pregnant doe delivering its baby and the legs are out while a vulture pecks at it. There is hyena at its mouth waiting for the right opportunity to kill it. If anyone remembers this video shown sometime in 1999 in the discovery channel you know what I mean.
for me, it is perceiving things as they are; not illusory but transitional divine forms.
they are both dancing in my brain, sometimes it is a valse, and sometimes they step on each other’s toes in their contradictions. In my heart there is a deep commitment and resolve that all would be of no value, unless all is held in sacred oneness. so i hope to renounce all that the mind separated from the divine has created, and to embrace the real. i need Amma to help me with this, for too often i hold the unreal as real, and do not recognize the real with devotion and reverence.
As long as the mind and senses are bound to the pleasures, there is no doubt, what the mind perceives or the senses understand are bound to be false. Yet the all-pervading supreme conciousness remains the same, as AMMA tells, though God is in you, you aren’t in God. Even so, everything is divine, yet we can’t perceive them so. Yet the divinity remains unchanged and unaffected.
I feel both aspects are two sides of the single coin ‘Spirituality’… Perceiving things around us as illusion / Maya helps to develop the feel of Detachment / Dispassion to the wordly things…. Seeing everything as the the Sacred form of Divine helps to increase the depth / vastness of love within oneself…
There is supposed to be no flaw in GOD’s creation. So remembering that everything I try to perceive is Divine. The test comes when my mind perceives some flaw, Then I shirk it off saying its all “maya”. Hence in both ways acceptance or saying ‘yes’ to whatever comes my way is somewhat possible now.
when we are in the first stage of spirituality we perceive things around us as ‘Maya’ (illusion), and when we move to the second stage we see all as sacred forms of the divine. so both are the important stages of spirituality
You have stumbled on the “nut” or “mysteriousness” of this world before us.
When laughing not at anything but this “mystery”,
we are close to transcending this Goddess Maya,
who veils the sacredness of it all with the cloak of seperatness.
Seeing everything as illusion makes the surrounds void. You have none to depend upon, none to support also none to disturb.
But seeing everything as sacred form, makes you worship every body and thing, but being so wont you enter the phase where you give importance to others foresaking priority for your wants, needs until your own existence is a burden for you?
For me.. seeing me in others gives relief, if someone is suffering, its not the divine form that is suffering.. its me only. At least I can chose to suffer or help my self.
Well this is a difficult question. For me spirituality means to discover the sacredness behind the appereances. The play of Maya. I only see an outside form as Divine if i can recognise it as divinily pure emanating energy. That doesn’t happen often. I try though to see beyond the illusion.
To me, spirituality is seeing the material world as an illusion. The play of Maya. To not get affected by the outside world, and hold my center, without losing my self to the material wants and needs.
Hmmmm. Last summer, after Amma left Iowa, I was thinking that very same question, and this is what I came up with, and however wrong it may be, it has helped me figure it out.
Everything is like a hologram, it may look real, but in reality it isn’t. It could vanish at any time, like a wave heading toward land. In the short term, it may seem real, but it doesn’t last. However, the souls within everything ARE God, and they are part of me, so they are sacred, whether their physical bodies are or aren’t.
The Cosmos is the dream of God. It arises in Him and merges in Him. It is the product of His Mind. These lives and repeated arrivals, all are the fanciful weavings of Maya, unreal fantasies, illusory agitations, unreal appearances. In every object in the universe, Being (Sat), Awareness (Chit), Bliss (Ananda), are present in a subtle form. There is nothing in the world which is not a manifestation of God. The cosmos is permeated by God and everything is contained in Him. Man, who lives under the delusion that he is the body, has read in many books that everything is ‘Maya’ (illusion) and sacred forms of the divine as well. In fact, the jagat (world) is the Lîla of the Lord.
Although it was maya, to Radha everything was nothing but her dearest Krishna. AMMA lived and showed us this for us to study. It is difficult to reach that state but if we listen carefully to AMMA, we can practice and attain.
To see AMMA in everyone and everything is possible when we have an egoless mind or a pure heart. AMMA says “obedience to the Guru destroys ego” & “Fill our heart with compassion then alone God can shine”. Then maya will not obstruct our vision. And God can be seen.
Both the statements / views are synonymous. When you reach that summit of your spiritual journey, you begin to see all as the sacred forms of the divine, simultaneously realizing that very moment, that all your perceptions about things around you were due to Maya. You see, as Shri Ramakrishna put it, even if a room remains in dark for a thousand years, the moment light enters, it does’nt take any ‘time’ to get illumined. It just happens simultaneousely. The Laithasahasranam contains the mantras Dukha Hantrayi Namah and Sukha Pradayinyai Namah coming one after the other at 191 & 192. Do not both mean the same in a way ? The ending of sorrors marks the begining of happiness.
Can I forget the illussion for a moment and just merge into the divine mother who is enjoying her eternal bliss miles above this material abode? And laugh as she shoots me straight into a coma of love and great compassion. Sometimes I get the feeling that Amma is horrrifying scary dragon, and is going to eat me. Would that be maya or a sacred form of durga? I don’t know at this point.
in maya also there is good and bad. we like to offer pooja to amma not to any body else. so amma is good maya. so looking, thinking and being near to this good mayadevi is good for us. good maya is also sacred.
if we go after the bad maya it will become cause of our suffering and downfall.
My goal is to attain the state of seeing all as sacred forms of divine.
Spirituality means seeing everything as a sacred illusion. This illusion was created for our spiritual growth, and so it is sacred. Even though we have to overcome it in order to get to a better understanding, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t sacred. Maya is like last year’s school textbook. Last year it was useful, this year it isn’t, but that doesn’t mean that it stopped being a source of knowledge. Maya is like this, even though we must get rid of it, it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn from it anymore: that’s what makes it sacred.
Spirituality means live according to the knowledge of Pure self. Maya’s veiling power veils the Truth but by itself cannot create the world. But maya is destroyed when knowing the Truth.
I see everything around me as sacred divine.I don’t know much about this.if we see ammas DVD or read Ammas book and follow Ammas teachig one can experience.