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 When
one accepts entry into the game as a player, awareness of
unity is lost in the obsession (fascination) of play. This
taking-over of consciousness is the fun of play. The one becomes
many, to play a game of cosmic hide-and seek with itself.
The one is reality. Multiplicity is illusion.
This illusion of multiplicity is created by the veiling power
of the one (the Supreme Consciousness). This veiling power
is called Maya Shakti, or maya. This veiling power creates
the illusion of me and mine, or thee and thine, which creates
ignorance in the individual consciousness. Those who realize
this ignorance call it avidya (a = no; vidya = knowledge:
thus ignorance or absence of knowledge). So maya is also called
avidya by yogis. This ignorance comes to individual consciousness
through the mind: that is why yoga is the practical device
to stop the modifications of mind, and yoga's aim is to arrest
mind, to stop the inner dialogue, to go beyond the mind, to
realize one's true nature, beyond the illusion of me and mine.
The world of names and forms is maya. This illusion
can be seen at every level. The human body itself is not a
unit of existence, but is composed of countless numbers of
cells and micelles. If each cell starts growing a sense of
me and mine, each human body will become a subcontinent. It
is the individual ego (ahamkara) which creates separate units
of existence - but this is itself is maya (illusion). Ego
cannot function without mind, as mind cannot without sense-organs.
So it is only after the mind is brought to a suppressed state
that the sense of me and mine can be completely annihilated.
By yoga alone can this state be achieved, and an end brought
to this illusory sense of being an independent unit. After
realization of truth through a direct experience of reality
in samadhi, Maya Shakti can be understood - and the human
psycho-drama can be observed as divine play, as Leela.
Maya Shakti is the power which brings forth
the evolution of the phenomenal world. It makes this possible
by an interplay of the three
gunas - sattva, rajas and tamas.
Comic Consciousness becomes individual consciousness
by its own maya. This diversity in unity is illusion, and
is caused by the veiling power of the Supreme Consciousness.
All that the player perceives of the phenomenal world exists
within himself.
Two comes into being when 1 repeats itself.
Two is maya, because both were present in the One. The two
are the internal and the external world; the unmanifested
and the manifested, Shiva
and Shakti,
male and female, Sun
and Moon,
gross and subtle, Absolute and maya, Noumenon and Phenomenon.
Two is therefore the number of maya or illusion, the universal
play of cosmic energy.
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