{"id":685,"date":"2013-07-13T01:29:42","date_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/?p=685"},"modified":"2013-07-13T01:29:42","modified_gmt":"2013-07-13T01:29:42","slug":"06-maya-the-principle-of-phenomenal-existence-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/01-works-of-sri-aurobindo\/01-sabcl\/12-the-upanishad-volume-12\/06-maya-the-principle-of-phenomenal-existence-vol-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","title":{"rendered":"-06_Maya The Principle of Phenomenal Existence.htm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n

FOUR<\/span> <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n


\nMaya: The Principle
\nof Phenomenal Existence<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\nB<\/span>rahman
\n<\/span><\/b>then, let us suppose, has projected in Itself this
\nluminous shadow of Itself and has in the act (speaking always in the language of
\nfinite beings with its perpetual taint of Time, Space and Causality) begun to
\nenvisage Itself and consider Its essentialities in the light of attributes. He
\nwho is Existence, Consciousness, Bliss envisages Himself as existent, conscious,
\nblissful. From that moment phenomenal manifestation becomes inevitable; the
\nUnqualified chooses to regard Himself as qualified. Once this fundamental
\ncondition is granted, everything else follows by the rigorous logic of
\nevolution; it is the one postulate which Vedanta demands. For this postulate
\nonce granted, we can see how the Absolute when it projects in itself this
\nluminous Shadow called the Parabrahman, prepares the way for and as it were
\nnecessitates the evolution of this manifest world, \u2014 by bringing into play the
\ngreat fundamental principle of Maya or Illusion. Under the play of that one
\nprinciple translating itself into motion, the great transformation spoken of by
\nthe Upanishad becomes possible, \u2014 the One becomes the Many.<\/span><\/p>\n

(But this one fundamental
\npostulate is not easily conceived. The question which will at once spring up
\narmed and gigantic in the European mind is the teleological objection. Why?
\n<\/b>All action implies a purpose; with what purpose did Brahman regard Himself
\nas qualified? All Evolution is prompted by a desire, implies development, moves
\nto an intelligible goal. What did Brahman who, being Absolute, is
\nself-sufficing, desire, of what development did He stand in need or to what goal
\ndoes <\/b>He move? This is, from the teleological standpoint, the great crux
\nof any theory of the Universe which tries to start from an essential and
\noriginal Unity; a gulf is left which the intellect finds it<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 23<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

impossible to bridge. Certain philosophies do indeed
\nattempt to bridge it by a teleological explanation. The Absolute One, it is
\nargued, passes through the cycle of manifestation, because He then returns to
\nHis original unity enriched<\/i> with a new store of experiences and
\nimpressions, richer in love, richer in knowledge, richer in deed. It is truly
\namazing that any minds should be found which can seriously flatter themselves
\nwith the serene illusion that this is philosophy. Anything more unphilosophical,
\nmore vicious in reasoning cannot be imagined. When the Veda, speaking not of the
\nAbsolute but of Brahman Hiranyagarbha, says that He was alone and grew afraid of
\nHis loneliness, it passes, as a daring poetical fancy; and this too might pass
\nas a poetical fancy, but not as serious reasoning. It is no more than an
\nunreasoning recoil from the European idea of absolute, impersonal Unity as a
\nblank and empty Negation. To avoid this appalling conclusion, an Unity is
\nimagined which can be at the same time, not phenomenally but in its ultimate
\nreality, manifold, teeming with myriad memories. It is difficult to understand
\nthe precise argumentation of the idea, whether the One when He has re-entered
\nHis unity, preserves His experiences in detail or in the mass, say, as a pulp or
\nessence. But at any rate several radical incoherences are in its conception. The
\nAbsolute is imagined as a thing incomplete and awaking to a sense of Its
\nincompleteness which It proceeds in a businesslike way to remedy; subject
\ntherefore to Desire and subject also to Time in which It is now contained! As to
\nthe source whence these new impressions are derived which complete the
\nincompleteness of Brahman, that is a still greater mystery. If it was out of
\nHimself, then it was latent in Him, already existing unknown to Himself. One
\ntherefore presumes He produced in Himself, since there was no other place to
\nproduce them from, things which had no existence previously but now are; that
\nwhich was not, became; out of nothing, something arose. This is not philosophy
\nbut theology; not reasoning, but faith. As faith it might pass; that God is
\nomnipotent and can therefore literally create something out of nothing, is a
\ndogma which one is at liberty to believe or reject, but it is outside the sphere
\nof reasoning).<\/span><\/p>\n

There seems at first to be a fatal
\nobjection to the concession<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 24<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

of this postulate; it seems really to evade the
\nfundamental question of the problem of Existence or merely carry the beginning
\nof the problem two steps farther back. For the great crux of the Universe is
\nprecisely the difficulty of understanding How and Why the One became Many, and
\nwe do not get rid of the difficulty by saying that it proceeds from the
\nUnqualified willing to regard Himself as qualified. Even if the question How
\nwere satisfactorily met by the theory of Maya, the Why of the whole process
\nremains. The goal of Evolution may have been determined, \u2014 it is, let us
\nconcede, the return of the Infinite upon Itself through the cycle of
\nmanifestation; but the beginning of Evolution is not accounted for, its utility
\nis not made manifest. Why did the Absolute turn His face towards Evolution?
\nThere seems to be no possible answer to this inquiry; it is impossible to
\nsuggest any teleological reason why the Unqualified should will to look on
\nHimself as qualified and so set the wheel of Evolution rolling, \u2014at any rate any
\nreason which would not be hopelessly at variance with the essential meaning of
\nAbsoluteness: and it is only an unphilosophic or imperfectly philosophic mind
\nwhich can imagine that it has succeeded in the attempt. But the impossibility
\ndoes not vitiate the theory of Maya; for the Vedantist parries this question of
\nthe Why with an unanswerable retort. The question itself, he says, as directed
\nto the Brahman, is inadmissible and an impertinence. He, being Absolute, is in
\nHis very nature beyond Causality on which all ideas of need, utility, purpose
\ndepend, and to suppose purpose in Him is to question His transcendent and
\nabsolute nature: That which is beyond Causality has no need to act on a purpose.
\nTo catechise the Mighty Infinite as to why It chose to veil Its infinity in
\nMaya, or to insist that the Universe shall choose between being utilitarian or
\nnot being at all, is absurd; it betrays a want of perfect intellectual lucidity.
\nThe question Why simply cannot arise.<\/span><\/p>\n

But even when the question of
\nutility is set aside, the intelligibility of the process is not established. The
\nUnqualified willing to regard Himself as qualified is, you say. His Maya. But
\nwhat is the nature of the process, intellectual or volitional, and how can an
\nintellectual or volitional process be consistently attributed to the Absolute ?
\n\u2014 on this head at least one expects<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 25<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

intellectual satisfaction. But the Vedantist
\nstrenuously denies the legitimacy of the expectation. If the "Will to regard"
\nwere put forward as a literal statement of a definable fact and its terms as
\nphilosophically precise, then the expectation would be justi\u00adfiable. But the
\nterms are avowedly poetical and therefore logically inadequate; they were merely
\nintended to present the fact of Maya to the intellect in the imperfect and
\ntotally inadequate manner which is alone possible to finite speech and thought
\nin dealing with the infinite. No intellectual or volitional process as we
\nconceive will and intellect has really taken place. What then has happened ?
\nWhat is Maya ? How came it into existence?<\/span><\/p>\n

The Vedanta answers this question
\nwith its usual uncompromising candour and imperturbable clearness of thought;\u2014
\nWe cannot tell, it says, for we do not and cannot know; at least we cannot
\nintelligibly define; and this for the simple reason that the birth of Maya, if
\nit had any birth, took place on the other side of phenomena, before the origin
\nof Time, Space and Causality; and is therefore not cognisable by the intellect
\nwhich can only think in terms, of Time, Space and Causality. A little reflection
\nwill show that the existence of Maya is necessarily involved even in the casting
\nof the luminous shadow called Parabrahman. A thing so far removed in the dark
\nbackward and abysm before Time, a state, force or process (call it what we will)
\noperating directly in the Absolute who is but cannot be thought of, may be
\nperceived as a fact, but cannot be explained or defined. We say therefore that
\nMaya is a thing anirdeśyam,<\/i> impossible to define, of which we cannot say
\nthat it is, \u2014 for it is Illusion, \u2014 and we cannot say that it is not, \u2014 for it
\nis the Mother of the Universe; we can only infer that it is a something inherent
\nin the being of Brahman and must therefore be not born but eternal, not in Time,
\nbut out of Time. So much arises from our premises; more it would be dishonest to
\npretend to know.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still Maya is no mere assumption
\nor its existence unprovable! Vedanta is prepared to prove that Maya is; prepared
\nto show What<\/i> it is, not ultimately but as involved in Parabrahman and
\nmanifested in the Universe; prepared to describe How<\/i> it set about the
\nwork of Evolution, prepared to present Maya in terms of the intellect as a
\nperfectly possible explanation of the<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 26<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

entire order of the Universe; prepared even to contend
\nthat it is the only explanation perfectly consistent with the nature of being
\nand the recognised bases of scientific and philosophical truth. It is only not
\nprepared to represent the ultimate infinite nature and origin of Maya in precise
\nterms comprehensible to finite mind; for to attempt philosophical
\nimpossibilities consti\u00adtutes an intellectual pastime in which the Vedantist is
\ntoo much attached to clear thinking to indulge.<\/span><\/p>\n

What then is Maya? It is,
\nintellectually envisaged, a subjective necessity involved in the very nature of
\nParabrahman. We have seen that Parabrahman is visible to us in the form of three
\nsubjective conceptions with three corresponding objective conceptions, which are
\nthe essentialities of His being. But Parabrahman is the Brahman as envisaged by
\nthe individual self in the act of returning to its source; Brahman externalised
\nby His own will in the form of Maya is looking at Himself with the curtains of
\nMaya half-lifted but not yet quite thrown back. The forms of Maya have
\ndisappeared, but the essentiality stands behind the returning Self at the
\nentrance of the porch, and it is only when he reaches the inner end of the porch
\nthat he passes utterly out of the control of Maya. And the essentiality of Maya
\nis to resolve Existence, Consciousness and Bliss which are really one, into
\nthree, the Unity appearing as a Trinity and the single Essentiality immediately
\nbreaking up into manifold properties or attributes. The absolute Brahman at the
\ninner entrance is the bright triune Parabrahman, absolute also, but cognisable;
\nat the threshold of the porch He is Parabrahman envisaging Maya, and the next
\nstep carries Him into Maya, where Duality begins, Purusha differentiates from
\nPrakriti, Spirit from Matter, Force from Energy, Ego from Non-Ego; and as the
\ndescent into phenomena deepens, single Purusha differentiates itself into
\nmultitudinous receptacles, single Prakriti into innumerable forms. This is the
\nlaw of Maya.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the first step, speaking in
\nthe terms of pure intellect, is the envisaging of the Essentiality as possessing
\nIts three sub\u00adjective and three objective properties, \u2014 Existence,
\nConsciousness, Bliss; Truth, Knowledge, Infinity. The moment this happens, by
\ninevitable necessity, the opposite attributes, Nothingness, Non-Sentience, Pain,
\npresent themselves as inseparable<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 27<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

shadows of the three substances, and with them come the
\nobjective triad. Falsehood, Ignorance, Limitation; Limitation necessitates
\nDivisibility, Divisibility necessitates Time and Space; Time and Space
\nnecessitate Causality, Causality, the source from which definite phenomena
\narise, necessitates Change. All the fundamental laws of Duality have sprung into
\nbeing, necessitated in a moment by the appearance of Saguna Brahman, the
\nUnqualified Infinite become Qualified. They do not really or ultimately exist,
\nbecause they are inconsistent with the absolute nature of Parabrahman, for even
\nin the sphere of phenomena we can rise to the truth that annihilation is an
\nillusion and only form is destroyed; nothingness is an impossibility, and the
\nEternal cannot perish; nor can He become non-sentient in whose being sentience
\nand non-sentience are one; nor can He feel pain who is infinite and without
\nlimitation. Yet these things, which we know cannot exist, must be conceived and
\ntherefore have phenomenally an existence and a reality in impermanence. For this
\nis the paradox of Maya and her works that we cannot say they exist, because they
\nare in reality impossible, and we cannot say they do not exist, because we must
\nconceive them subjectively and, knowledge being now turned outward, envisage
\nthem objectively.<\/span><\/p>\n

Surely this is to land ourselves
\nin a metaphysical morass! But the key of the tangle is always in our hands; \u2014 it
\nis to remember that Parabrahman is Himself only the aspect of the indefinable
\nAbsolute who is beyond Science and Nescience, Existence and Non-existence,
\nLimitation and Infinity, and His sixfold attributes are not really six but one,
\nnot really attributes of Brahman, but in their unity Brahman Himself. It is only
\nwhen we conceive of them as attributes that we are driven to regard
\nAnnihilation, Non-sentience and Limitation and their correspondings, subjective
\nor objective, as realities. But we are driven so to conceive them by something
\ndatelessly inherent in the infinite Will to live, in Brahman Himself. To leave
\nfor a moment the difficult language of metaphysics which, on this dizzy verge of
\ninfinity eludes and bewilders our giddy understanding and to use the trenchant
\nsymbolic style of the Upanishads, Parabrahman is the luminous shadow of the
\nAbsolute projected in Itself by Itself, and Maya is similarly the dark shadow
\nprojected by the Absolute<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 28<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

in Parabrahman; both are real because eternal, but
\nsheer reality is neither the light nor the darkness but the Thing-in-itself
\nwhich they not merely like phenomena represent, but which in an inexplicable way
\nthey are. This, then, is Maya in its subjective relation to Parabrahman.<\/span><\/p>\n

In phenomena Maya becomes
\nobjectivised in a hundred elusive forms, amid whose complex variety we long
\nstrive vainly to find the one supreme clue. The old thinkers long followed
\nvarious of the main threads, but none led them to the mysterious starting-point
\nof her motions. "Then," says the Shwetashwatara, "they followed after
\nconcentration of Yoga and saw the Might of the Spirit of the Lord hidden deep in
\nthe modes of workings of its own nature;" devātmaśakti,<\/i> the Energy of the
\nDivine Self, Parabrahman, is Maya; and it is in another passage stated to have
\ntwo sides, obverse and reverse, Vidya and Avidya, Science and Nescience.
\nNescience eternally tends to envelop Science, Science eternally tends to
\ndisplace Nescience. Avidya or Nescience is Parabrahman’s power of creating
\nillusions or images, things which seem but are not in themselves; Vidya or
\nScience is His power of shaking off His own imaginations and returning upon His
\nreal and eternal Self. The action and reaction of these two great Energies doing
\nwork upon each other is the secret of Universal activity. The power of Nescience
\nis evident on every plane of existence; for the whole Universe is a series of
\nimages. The sun rises up in the morning, mounts into the cusp of the blue
\nHeavens and descends at evening trailing behind it clouds of glory as it
\ndisappears. Who could doubt this irrefragable, overwhelmingly evidenced fact?
\nEvery day, through myriads of years, the eyes of millions of men all over the
\nworld have borne concurrent and unvarying testimony to the truth of these
\nsplendid voyagings. Than such universal ocular testimony, what evidence can be
\nmore conclusive? Yet it all turns out to be an image created by Nescience in the
\nfield of vision. Science comes and undeterred by prison and the stake tells us
\nthat the sun never voyages through our heavens, is indeed millions of miles from
\nour heavens, and it is we who move round the sun, not the sun round us. Nay,
\nthose Heavens themselves, the blue firmament into which poetry and religion have
\nread so much beauty and wonder,<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n


\nPage \u2013 29<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

is itself only an image, in which Nescience represents
\nour atmosphere to us in the field of vision. The light too which streams upon us
\nfrom our sun and seems to us to fill Space turns out to be no more than an
\nimage. Science now freely permitted to multiply her amazing paradoxes, forces us
\nat last to believe that it is only motion of matter affecting us at a certain
\npitch of vibration with that particular impression on the brain. And so she goes
\non resolving all things into mere images of the" great cosmic ether which alone
\nis. Of such unsubstantialities is this marvellous fabric of visible things
\ncreated! Nay, it would even appear that the more unsubstantial a thing seems,
\nthe nearer it is to ultimate reality. This, which Science proves, says the
\nVedantist, is precisely what is meant by Maya.<\/span><\/p>\n

Never dream, however, that
\nScience will end here and that we have come to the last of her unveilings. She
\nwill yet go on and tell us that the cosmic ether itself is only an image, that
\nthis universe of sensible things and things inferable from sense is only a
\nselection of translations from a far vaster universe of forms built out of
\nsubtler matter than our senses can either show or imply to us. And when she has
\nentered into that subtler world with fit instruments of observation and
\nanalysis, that too she will relentlessly resolve into mere images of the subtler
\nether out of which it is born. Behind that subtler universe also there looms a
\nprofounder and vaster, but simpler state of existence where there is only the
\nundetermined universality of things as yet involved in their causes. Here
\nScience must come to her latest dealings with matter and show us that this
\nindeterminate universality of things is after all only an image of something in
\nour own self. Meanwhile with that very self she is busy, continually and
\npotently trying to persuade us that all which we believe to be ourselves, all in
\nwhich our Nescience would have us contentedly dwell, is mere imagery and form.
\nThe animal in us insists that this body is the real Self and the satisfaction of
\nits needs our primal duty; but Science (of whom Prof. Haeckel’s Riddle of the
\nUniverse<\/i> is not the concluding utterance) bids us beware of identifying our
\nSelf with a mere mass of primitive animal forms associated together by an
\naggregating nucleus of vital impulses; this surely is not the reality of
\nShakespeare and Newton, Buddha and St.<\/span> <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 30<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n

    Francis ! Then in those vital impulses we seek the
\nbedrock of our being. But these too Science resolves into a delusion or image
\ncreated by Nescience; for in reality these vital impulses have no existence by
\nthemselves but are merely the link established between that material aggregation
\nof animal forms and something within us which we call Mind. Mind too she will
\nnot permit us long to mistake for anything more than an image created by the
\ninteraction of sensations and response to sensations between the material
\naggregation of the body and something that governs and informs the material
\nsystem. This governing power in its action upon mind reveals itself in the
\ndiscriminating, selecting, ordering and purposeful entity called by Vedanta the
\nBuddhi, of which reason is only one aspect, intellect only one image. Buddhi
\nalso turns out eventually to be no entity, only an image, and Science must end
\nby showing us that body, vitality, mind, Buddhi are all images of what
\nPhilosophy calls Ananda, the pleasure of existence or Will to live; and she
\nreveals to us at last that although this Will divides itself into innumerable
\nforms which represent themselves as individual selves, yet all these are images
\nof one great Cosmic Will to live, just as all material forms are merely images
\nof one great undifferentiated Universality of cosmic matter, causal ether, if we
\nso choose to describe it. That Will is Purusha, that Universality is Prakriti;
\nand both are but images of Parabrahman.<\/span><\/p>\n

   
\nSo, very briefly and inadequately
\nstated in some of its main principles, runs the Vedantic theory of Maya, for
\nwhich analytic Science is, without quite knowing it, multiplying a stupendous
\nmass of evidence. Every fresh certainty which this Science adds, swells the
\nmass, and it is only where she is incomplete and therefore should be agnostic,
\nthat Vedanta finds no assistance from her analysis. The completion of Science
\nmeans the final conquest over Nescience and the unveiling of Maya. <\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\nPage \u2013 31<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FOUR  Maya: The Principle of Phenomenal Existence   Brahman then, let us suppose, has projected in Itself this luminous shadow of Itself and has in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-12-the-upanishad-volume-12","wpcat-14-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worksofthemotherandsriaurobindo.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}