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Understanding 'Maya'
A word of warning: it pretends to be modern and at the same time crude and superficial. It has been discussed threadbare by many renowned authorities since millennia. It is recognized in almost all Eastern religions. I don’t pretend to be an authority on this profound topic. Just a glimpse of it I absorbed. Maya means ‘illusion’ – taking the most common dictionary meaning – an erroneous perception of reality; a delusive concept or belief. One can rightfully take pride for our ancestors having thought of this concept: that everything is Maya – not real. I am dwelling on this theme in a rather trivial manner – I must confess.
First thing is that everything is Maya. So, whatever I am going to say or whatever our sages said is nothing but ‘Maya’. We live in a make belief world. That is reality and again that is not reality.
From time immemorial human beings in different parts of the world thought in all various ways of explanation of things around them. Everybody thought at that moment of time that they were true and nothing but true. Subsequently, human knowledge continued expanding and new interpretation emerged. They thought it was true then, the earlier version was untrue. In this way every successive generation continued polishing the earlier flawed belief, and exulted in the newer and ‘real’ truth. But one thing is that none thought it was also temporarily true subject to subsequent revision. All such breakthroughs were nothing but phases giving way to newer understanding of the nature and thought.
In ancient India it was believed that the world is composed of five basic elements: earth, water, air, fire, and ether. For many centuries, people lived with the concept and they were happy. In Auyrveda --leaving out the other areas -- it is still used for treatment of diseases based on these principles. Later, it was revised elsewhere: some more basic elements were found. With time it went on increasing as more number of elements discovered. Yet, we cannot say it is final now. Earlier there used to be only 9 planets. Now, the number is more, but is it the last one? So, what we thought to be true was not true. It was true with our limited capacity of understanding up to that point of time. Again, what is true now may not stand scrutiny with passage of time. From this discussion it becomes clear that it is true for the time being and goes on changing next time with increased range of our understanding. It is true and not true. It boils down to the fact that even concept of Maya may not be true. Who knows, one day, the illusion shrouding ‘Maya’ may be unveiled. But can we be certain on this point? We don’t know, as we are floating in a fluid kind of understanding. Knowing the absolute truth is beyond the capacity of human being. The pity is that this limitation of human understanding is yet to be generally recognized.
The foregoing words were written long before my mind got contaminated by the weird theory of Quantum Mechanics, which can be taken as modern – genuine not pseudo –scientific version of ‘Maya’. I didn’t make any alteration in it afterwards.
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