Thank you dear Mr. Sravna.
ray2:
Coming from you, it carries more weight than usual.

Coming from you, it carries more weight than usual.

Good one madam!
Good one madam!
If Maya and Brahman have a conversation I wonder who pays the bill?
Dear Sravna,
I was relaxing a while and hearing this song and just thought its almost like a Jeeva and Maya conversation..
Ok Jeeva is getting fed up of Maya and the "lies" and illusions she spins and Jeeva has fallen in love with Brahman and only wants to break free to reach Him at the same time relates how Maya has conditioned Jeeva all these years and Jeeva realizes that he has to get used to being alone without all the transient illusionary love of Maya that Jeeva was accustomed all these years..
Karl Marx said " Religion is the Opium of the People".
Hey Sravna....is Maya making us puff Opium?
Can we say Maya is the Opium of the masses?
I would add more an opium of the elite since they seem to stagger more than the masses
You know Sravna..anyone reading all our post so far might think me or you were high on opium when we wrote all these..just scroll back and read what we wrote!!
Its spiritually "high".LOL!! (just kidding)
Don't you think maya would then be at its very best?
Ok now I have a question for you Sravna..many a times its asked if Jeeva or even Iswara under the spell of Maya... but is Maya under its own spell too?
What I mean is ..Is Maya immune to its own Maya?
Dear Renuka,
IMO, the influence of maya should seen in context of its purpose. It is that aspect of the omniscient and omnipotent brahman which again IMO is responsible for the bliss of the brahman. The bliss comes from the inherent balance because that which is perfectly balanced can never come to grief and there is a peace that is its characteristic. We have human examples in the great sages especially the brahmarishis who are supposed to have transcended emotions and hence can never be mentally affected.
Thus the purpose of maya in physical terms is only to aid the process towards that blissful state and in spiritual terms defines brahman's eternal and blissful state. But maya shouldn't be thought of as something separate from brahman but if something that is resposnible for the physical world and all its events and also for the the own bliss of brahman, and has been called something, it is called maya.
So, maya deluding itself would be self destructive and contradicts the eternal nature of brahman.
Sorry to jump in to this high philosophy talk between two stalwarts.
Can Maya be equated to "ignorance of truth", it is opposite of truth. So ignorance can not have ignorance. There has to be a percepter to be ignorant of truth for maya to function. When we take away the jiva there is no maya IMO.
Dear all,
i will put a Q & A taken from Sathya Sai Gita.
Q)Is it possible to discover the begining or the end of Maya?
Can anyone know when Maya will end?
A)None can discover the begining of Maya.neither the personalized God(Easwara),nor the individual self(jeeva) nor the objective world(Prakrithi) can ever suceed in discovering the begining of Maya which brought them into existence and started the chain of
"act--consequence-act'
Nevertheless one can suceed in discovering when Maya will end!
When will it end?
When the objective world is ignored,set aside,denied or discovered to be immanent in the Divine,the jeeva is no more.
Easwara(personalized God) is also superflous and disappears.And when the Easwara has faded out,the Brahman alone is.
When a personalized God,jeeva and prakrithi(the objective world) are non existent in the developed consciousness of man,Maya the progenitor of all three cannot persists.
before that :Maya is the Will that caused The Personalized God(Easwara),Jeeva and the objective world(Prakriti).
Maya is like a mirror....
When the Sattvic nature is reflected in it...Personalized God(Easwara) results....
When Rajasic nature is reflected in it....Individualized Self(Jeeva) results...
When the Tamasic nature is relected in it....The Objective world(Prakriti) results...
all inputs taken from Sri Sathya Sai Gita..Q & A
Sorry to jump in to this high philosophy talk between two stalwarts.
Can Maya be equated to "ignorance of truth", it is opposite of truth. So ignorance can not have ignorance. There has to be a percepter to be ignorant of truth for maya to function. When we take away the jiva there is no maya IMO.
Dear Shri Prasad,
IMO maya is something that stands on its own. It is my view that the jiva itself is a product of distorted reality or the action of maya. Jiva itself being a product of maya perceives the reality as distorted. When it becomes spiritual it is freed from maya and the reality becomes clear.
Dear Sravna,
You are right in your view..doesnt it match this?
Maya is the Will that caused The Personalized God(Easwara),Jeeva and the objective world(Prakriti).
Maya is like a mirror....
When the Sattvic nature is reflected in it...Personalized God(Easwara) results....
When Rajasic nature is reflected in it....Individualized Self(Jeeva) results...
When the Tamasic nature is relected in it....The Objective world(Prakriti) results...
all inputs taken from Sri Sathya Sai Gita..Q & A
Dear Sravna:
Two groups of young men (age around 23-25), one group of Atheists and the other Believers in God, were shown individually a very voluptuous vivacious young woman. All of them showed clear sign of sexual arousal immediately.
Then they were informed quietly that she is "Your step-sister, you both have the same biological father". All of them lost the sexual arousal immediately.
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Respected members,
As a tamil brahmana smarta (supposed to be) advaita follower, I have had the good luck of learning a few things about advaita.
The first impression I get on going through the OP by Shri Sravna (who, it seems to me has his own unchangeable and finalistic views about advaita, Brahman, mAyA, etc., reading some of his old threads from the archives) and also the many posts subsequent to that, is that this advaita topic has been converted into something like a temple bell - anyone may and can ring the bell whichever manner one wishes to do that. I feel sad for myself, advaita and feel Adi Sankara will not have dreamt such treatment of a philosophy for which he spent his entire, but short, life.
I am not qualified to say anything in the sense of comments or of finding fault with the various views expressed here. But Sankara himself never seems to have used the word "mAyA" in his BSB or the other bhAShyas; he used the word "adhyAsa" and/or "adhyArOpa" and in any hair-splitting analysis, the popular mAyA concept will not be Sankara's adhyAsa or adhyArOpa, I think. Sankara was himself very frugal in describing exactly what his concept of the adhyAsa/adhyArOpa was.
Like what I wrote a few days ago in another post, according to Sankara's advaita, the Supreme Reality or Brahman, just is ......... and nothing more can be said about it including that it is brhat, because then it will go away from nirguNa parabrahman to something else. saguNa brahman or ISwara is a product of the vyAvahArika satya and hence a product of the interaction between adhyArOpa and the nirguNabrahman.
It is not so easy to play with such concepts, nor is advaita fault-free as any well-read viSiShTAdvaitin or dwaitin member here (like s/shri sarang, govinda?, I don't know) will be able to explain. The popular and populist concept of mAyA is a subsequent import into advaitic thought, and mainly to counter criticisms against advaita.
It is ridiculous as well as ludicrous, to say the least, that topics which minds like Ramanuja, Madhwa, Appayya Deekshitar and many other giants could not dissect and come to an agreement, are being treated like ordinary mundane items and people are 'ammAna ADu-fying' with those here. I feel we are just bringing disgrace to our AcAryas and other great people by this.
I humbly request those interested in advaita to visit this web-page, download the 8 audio files, (especially the one on 27-11) understand the contents and then, perhaps, continue this charade of "learned discussions".
Hindu non-dualism (advaita) in theory and practice (eight lectures) | The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies
When even more sacrosanct beliefs such as belief in God is being treated like trash, why not an earnest and well intentioned discussion to probe further into a not so well understood philosophy be considered, beyond debate?
Ok now I have a question for you Sravna..many a times its asked if Jeeva or even Iswara under the spell of Maya... but is Maya under its own spell too?
What I mean is ..Is Maya immune to its own Maya?
Are we talking about Maya or M.I.A. (Maya (Mathangi) Arulpragasam)? M.I.A. (artist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia She was in the news recently (for the wrong reasons) during the American Super Bowl along with Madonna.
In that case, shouldn't we refer to "her" instead of "it"? Sorry just had to lighten the mood a bit.![]()