Maya: Sense Contact, or not getting "big" picture

[Kismet]

So, I have been thinking much on the concept of Maya recently, and it seems to me more and more as if it has less to do with being deluded by the senses, than it does not understanding reality in its Breadth and Sweep as ONE undivided field of being and activity. Mind you, I am not accepting some trans-personal view of the divine, only that reality as a whole (including God and jivas) is undivided, non-dual, interrelated, and so on.

Is this an appropriate view of Maya to have or am I confounding it with something else: Avidya, maybe?

Namaste.

[sm78]

What you think is correct from siddhanta point of view - maya is the delusion which restricts the universal consciousness into the limitations of space, time, desire, knowledge & power. This results the undivided consciousness to appear as fragmented, limited and reduces it to souls (purusha).

Sense instruments are limiting only because we perecieve them within the limitation of maya. Without maya and the consequent 5-fold limitation, the sense perceptions simply become what they really are - vibrations in undivided consciousness.

But this is not the case with advaita of vedanta. According to vedanta, one cannot attribute the senses, sense perceptions, sense objects etc to Brahma. But details you need ask devotee ji.

[wundermonk]

Devoteeji is on a sabbatical.

I think he said that he wouldnt post on HDF for 2 months.

Hope he breaks his hiatus early.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

• māyā माया - is illusion one is familiar with; it also means two meters; mā is measure
• māya माय - is measuring; rooted in mā is measure, to measure accoss, etc.
• maya मय - is rooted in mī and mā; mī to lose one's way , go astray ;
  to lessen ,diminish , destroy ; mā is measure , binding ; ma is time

For me, I keep this māyā simple - it is the notion that the infinite is measured out, is metered out. As if one can divide Infinity into parts. This is the illusion... that the Infinite (brahman) becomes finite in things; as if the Infinite can be constrained to parts.


What does ādi śaṅkara-ji offer in his Vivekacūḍāmaṇi ( 111th śloka) regarding this matter? He says, It (māyā) is neither real nor unreal nor both. It is neither undifferentiated nor different, nor both. It neither has parts nor is it partless nor both. It is supremely wonderful and of an unexpressible form.

praṇām

[fromthroughandto]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

• māyā माया - is illusion one is familiar with; it also means two meters; mā is measure
• māya माय - is measuring; rooted in mā is measure, to measure accoss, etc.
• maya मय - is rooted in mī and mā; mī to lose one's way , go astray ;
  to lessen ,diminish , destroy ; mā is measure , binding ; ma is time

For me, I keep this māyā simple - it is the notion that the infinite is measured out, is metered out. As if one can divide Infinity into parts. This is the illusion... that the Infinite (brahman) becomes finite in things; as if the Infinite can be constrained to parts.


What does ādi śaṅkara-ji offer in his Vivekacūḍāmaṇi ( 111th śloka) regarding this matter? He says, It (māyā) is neither real nor unreal nor both. It is neither undifferentiated nor different, nor both. It neither has parts nor is it partless nor both. It is supremely wonderful and of an unexpressible form.

praṇām

Hi there, the thread starter (Kismet) pointed me to this thread in a discussion I was engaged in him with and thought I'd like to try and bring some ideas here that are forming part of my own (gradual study of Hindu terminology) I'm concentrating on your quote by ādi śaṅkara-ji offer in his Vivekacūḍāmaṇi ( 111th śloka) and would like to share something I discovered in the writings of Dr. JG Friesen.

Even Ramana Maharshi says that the world has a relative reality. He says that the doctrine of maya is often misunderstood, and that Shankara did not deny the reality of the world. He only denied the world�s reality when it is considered apart from Brahman:

He made three statements: that Brahman is real, that the universe is unreal, and that Brahman is the universe. He did not stop with the second. The third statement explains the first two; it signifies that when the Universe is perceived apart from Brahman, that perception is false and illusory. What it amounts to is that phenomena are real when experienced as the Self and illusory when seen apart from the self. (The Teachings of Ramana Maharshi, p. 16)

Ramana relies on a text, the Vivekacudamani, which may or may not be authentic Shankara.

From: Maya - Linked Glossary of Terms - Maya

Peace.