Darshan of Swami Krishnananda in 1999

by Swami Krishnananda

27. The Words Maya and Avidya

(Darshan given in May 1999)

Swamiji: This is what Ramanuja Acharya is asking: Where is maya sitting? Is it sitting in jiva or is it sitting in Brahman, or is it sitting nowhere? Nobody can answer this question. A thing that is nowhere, why are you simply going on thinking about it? It must be somewhere. If it is somewhere, you must see where it is. It is neither in the jiva, nor in the world, nor in God, so why are you complicating matters by using such words? So Ramanuja gets the point cleared.

It was having some meaning during the time when Sankaracharya was alive. It was a classical period. Now we need not use such words. Never use the words maya and avidya. You see whether you can understand things better or not. You are unnecessarily creating an impression that there is something other than what you are. Where is the avidya sitting in your mind – in the brain or nose, or where it is? You are a product of avidya, they say. Avidya actually means 'incapacity to know what has happened', that's all. It is a consciousness unable to understand what has happened to it. That inability itself is the maya.

Why do you use Sanskrit words? Use words which are capable of explaining things. How were you born? Why do you say avidya and all that? From where you came when you are actually born? You don't know anything. How we came, nobody knows. From where you came? And where you go, also you don't know. How we are living in the world, now also, that also. Neither the past nor the present nor the future is clear to us.

We don't even know what we are made of. Are we human beings, or something else? Are we men or women? Actually, they say there is no such thing as these things. They are only some pressures of Cosmic Consciousness which concentrate themselves on one point, which makes one feel that one exists in one particular spot of space and time. Space and time itself don't exist, and therefore this particular spot also doesn't exist. So the whole thing is a chaos. No argument can bring the answer. The only thing is, as the Upanishads have said, you don't go to argument too much.

Sa evādhastātsa upariṣṭātsa paścātsa purastātsa dakṣiṇataḥ sa uttarataḥ sa evedaṃ sarvamityathāto'haṃkārādeśa, evāhamevādhastādahamupariṣṭādahaṃ paścādahaṃ purastādahaṃ dakṣiṇato'hamuttarato'hamevedaṃ sarvamiti (C.U. 7.25.1): “I am above and I am below. I am to the right side and to the left side. I am in all places.” This is sufficient. This is the sadhana. Why are you arguing too much? If you are everywhere, what do you feel at that time? You are in the front, you are behind, you are in the top, you are in the bottom, you are on the right and on the left. You are everything. Whatever you see is you only. You are projected as if you see your own face in a mirror. You can see yourself in a mirror, but is that another person? So you are seeing yourself through an illusory mirror called space and time, and looking at the world outside. So the Upanishad is very correct.

You take some time to think like this. What I see is myself. Aham annam aham annam aham annam (T.U. 3.10.6): “I am the food that I eat. The food that I eat is myself only.” Aham annādo'ham annādo'ham annādah: “I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food.” Aham annam aham annam adantam ādmi: “I, who am food, eat the eater of food.” It abolishes the question of relation, duality, everything. “I, who am food, eat the eater of food.” This is the Brahma-jnani's experience. Aham suvarnajyotīh. Hā vu! Hā vu! Hā vu, the Upanishads says. That Hā vu! Hā vu! Hā vu! means one kind of joy: “Oh, oh, I am eating myself. The food that I eat is myself, and myself is eating the food that I myself am. Oh, oh, oh!”

I am seeing the trees and mountains, and sun, moon and stars. I myself am that. So you will never have any perception. Yatra nānyatpaśyati nānyacchṛṇoti nānyadvijānāti sa bhūmātha (C.U. 7.24.1): “The fullness of being is that state where you see nothing outside you, where you hear nothing outside, where you understand nothing.” Yatrānyatpaśyatyanyacchṛṇotyanyadvijānāti tadalpaṃ: “When you see something outside you, you are in a poor state.” That's why he says ahamevedaṃ sarvam: “I am the all.” The all, which appears to be outside, is also you only.

Unless there is a highly purified mind, free from any kind of desire – no egoism, no passion, nothing of the kind – without these prerequisites, nothing can enter the head. Otherwise, if there is some kind of subtle egoism or any desire unfulfilled, this kind of meditation will make a man go mad. But if you are a pure mind really honestly meditating – you have no egoism, ahankara, you want nothing – then this will catch you.