11 Dec 2021
[A question by Ms. Laxmi Thrylokya]
[Swami, this question is regarding the verse 7.25 in Gita -
" nā'haṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ
mūḍho 'yaṃ nābhijānāti loko mām ajam avyayam"
Some preacher interpreted the meaning like below -"God descends in this world by virtue of His Yogmaya energy and reveals His divine pastimes, His divine abode, His divine bliss and love on the Earth plane. However, the same Yogmaya power keeps His divinity veiled from us. We are unable to feel His presence, although He is seated in our hearts. Even in the present, if we are fortunate enough to see the Lord in His personal-form, we cannot recognize Him. Until we are eligible for His divine vision, the Yogmaya keeps God’s divine form concealed from us. And only by God’s grace, the Yogmaya bestows upon us the divine vision that allows us to recognize and see God." Swami, Is God really hiding within every soul using His Yogmaya?
Swami, could You please explain the meaning of the word 'Ātma Māya' in the Gita verse 4.6
ajo 'pi sannavyayātmā bhūtānām īśhvaro 'pi san
prakṛtiṃ svām adhiṣhṭhāya sambhavāmyātma-māyayā
-At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Laxmi Thrylokya]
Swami replied:- Shankara told that every soul is God and hence, God exists in every living being. I have told ‘n’ number of times that Shankara has to tell like this because when He incarnated on this earth everybody was an atheist and there is no other way than to tell like this in order to change the atheist to accept the existence of God; since if everybody is God, everybody has to agree that God exists because everybody exists. When the sin is done, this inert body is not responsible for that and only the individual soul being awareness has to undergo its punishment. In such case, God is to be punished for His own sins. If Arjuna and Krishna are Gods, God is teaching Himself! If Narasimha killed Hiranyakashipu, God committed suicide! Therefore, neither everybody is God nor God is present in everybody. Only when God incarnates as human incarnation like Rama, Krishna etc., such human being is certainly God. When Rama killed Ravana, God killed the demon. The original unimaginable and absolutely real God mediated Himself as the first energetic incarnation called as God Datta. Such God Datta can enter and merge with a human being as per His liking to become human incarnation. Such human incarnation is God Datta or the original unimaginable God. This is the total picture based on which only the spiritual knowledge must be preached.
Maayaa means wonderful (Maya-vaicitrye) and this indicates the unimaginable nature of unimaginable God. Hence, Maayaa is the unimaginable power of unimaginable God that can never be isolated from the unimaginable God. Based on the possessor of power (Sun) and the power (Sunlight) as we see in the imaginable world, for a better and easy understanding, the unimaginable God and unimaginable power are separately mentioned as hypothetical assumption. Otherwise, both are one and the same because any number of unimaginable items result in one unimaginable item only. This means that in the angle of the actual understanding of the concept both unimaginable God (Parabrahman) and unimaginable power (Maayaa) are one and the same. Based on the above said hypothetical assumption, Parabrahman and Maayaa are considered to be two items, but always treated as one item only since both can’t be separated from each other. This sort of constant association based on impossible separation is called as Yoga, which means constant association. This is the word Maayaa in the first sense.
The word Maayaa is also used in negative sense, which is that it does not exist but appearing as absolutely real (Yā mā sā māyā). This concept perfectly applies to this world including all souls because world is unreal by itself appearing as absolutely real by the gifted absolute reality of God by God. In this sense only this world can be called as Maayaa. This is the word Maayaa in the second sense and this word in the second sense is always used as the single word Maayaa. This word Maayaa in the first sense is always used as Yoga Maayaa.
Yoga Maayaa is the causal state and Maayaa is the effective state. Yoga Maayaa means unimaginable God and Maayaa means the unreal world appearing as absolutely real world due to the power of Yoga Maayaa. The Gita says that this world is Maayaa (Māyāṃ tu Prakṛtiṃ viddhi). The possessor of Maayaa or the possessor of world is God (Māyinaṃ tu Maheśvaram). When God says that nobody can cross this Maayaa, it means that no soul can attain the salvation from the worldly bonds created by the Yoga Maayaa of God or God Himself (Mama māyā duratyayā). But, if the grace of God is attained, one can attain salvation from this world (worldly bonds) (Māyā metāṃ taranti te). When God Datta merges with a human being liked by Him for the purpose of human welfare to become human incarnation, God says that He is incarnating as human incarnation based on His maayaa, which means the selected human being that is the part of this world or maayaa (Sambhavāmyātma māyayā).
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