Bhagavadgita -Radhakrishnan 26

The Bhagavadgita -S. Radhakrishnan

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 6. The Status of the World and the Concept of Maya Maya is sometimes said to be the source of delusion (moha). "Deluded by these threefold modes of nature (guna), this whole world does not recognize Me who am above them and imperishable. Through the force of maya we have a bewildering partial consciousness which loses sight of the reality and lives in the world of phenomena. God's real being is veiled by the play of prahrti and its modes The world is said to be deceptive because God hides Himself behind His creation The world is not a deception but the occasion for it. We must shatter all forms, get behind the veil to find the reality. The world and its changes constitute the self-concealment of God (tirodhana) or obscuring of the Creator by His creation. Man is inclined to turn towards the objects of the world instead of directing his mind to the Creator. God seems to be the great deceiver as He creates the world and its sense objects and turns our senses outward. The proneness to self-deception lies in the desire for the things of sense which actually leads man away from God. The glamour of the world casts its spell on us and we become slaves to its prizes. The world or objectivized nature or samsara is fallen, enslaved, alienated and it is full of suffering, as alienation from inward being is suffering. When it is said that "this divine maya of mine is hard to over come," it means that we cannot easily pierce behind the universe and its activities. We may here distinguish the different senses in which the word "maya" is used and indicate its place in the Gita. (1) If the Supreme Reality is unaffected by the events of the world, then the rise of these events becomes an inexplicable mystery. The author of the Gita does not use the term, "maya," in this sense, however much it may be implied in his views. The conception of a beginning-less, and at the same time unreal, avidya causing the appearance of the world, does not enter the mind of the author. (2) The personal Isvara is said to combine within Himself, sat and asat.