by Satsvarūpa dāsa Adhikārī (ISKCON-Boston)

The Sanskrit word maya means that which is not. In other words, it is illusion. For example, if a servant of a king thinks that he is the king, that is illusion. Generally, it is the illusion of all human beings that they are the lords of all they survey. But the actual fact is that they are under the grip of strict laws. They are trying to exploit the resources of material nature, but are becoming more entangled in nature's complexities. Since this maya is illusion, or unreality, it can be stopped simply by reviving the real, original nature of the human being. This is called Krsna consciousness. According to the Bhagavad-gita, the mistaken idea that we have of ourselves and of our environment makes it impossible for us to enjoy our real, eternal nature. Moreover, once into the predicament of being under illusion, it is very difficult to get out of it.

On hearing the description of our entanglement in maya's clutches, one might well ask, "How did we ever get into such a complicated predicament in the first place?" Another fair question is, "Why should God put anyone into the illusion that he is something which he is not?" The third question to be answered is, "How can one actually get out of maya?" We fall into maya because we are forgetful of our real selves. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada has explained that it is not very important to trace out when this happened. When people hear of the kingdom of God and of the original nature, blissful, eternal and full of life, they ask, "If it were so nice, why would I leave?" The answer to the question of when we fell is there in the Vedic literature. Specifically, in the Seventh Chapter, twenty-seventh verse, of Bhagavad-gita, it is stated that we are born into this material world of delusion when we are overcome by our desire to be God and by our hatred of Him. As for the time when we fell, it is untraceably long ago, so long that it is called a time immemorial. But more important than tracing out just when we fell is finding out how we can be rescued from our present fallen state. In other words, if one is now very poor, it is not important that he was once rich. Or if one says, "Once I had much butter," but now he does not have butter, the important thing is that now he has no butter. Similarly, we can observe that we are now in illusion. Some may think that these statements are word jugglery. Often a person tells us, "Never mind spiritual consciousness. I am already completely liberated. Do not call this illusion-I am happy here." But let us examine the real nature of the material world, the kingdom of maya.

Maya means to live in this material world and to think that it is one's permanent place and that one can become happy here. Ask a person living in this maya, "Are you happy?" and he may answer, "Yes, I am happy." But what is this happiness? Ask him further, "Do you like to grow old?"

"No," he'll answer.

Then, "Do you like disease?"

"No."

"Do you like to die?"

"No." Then where is happiness? As long as we have to suffer these very basic defects to life, there can be no happiness.

The way out of maya is the process of self-realization. By understanding who we are and understanding our relationship to God, we can understand that we are in maya and that it is no good. Self-realization and God realization begin with dissatisfaction. When we are dissatisfied, then we can search out liberation in our original state. By finding out our true nature, we can become free from the miseries of maya. But we must not think that we are happy in maya. To accuse the transcendentalist or spiritualist of being morbid because of his extreme criticism of the material world and its attractions is false. Rather, it is morbid to think that this life, which leads only to death, is everything. It is morbid to think that one is enjoying his body and its sensual pleasures when every day one can see side by side a beautiful young girl and a decrepit old woman and observe how quickly the change takes place. It is morbid to try to squeeze pleasure out of the body, mistaking the body for the real self. To treat the body as the self is as foolish as to try to eat by putting foodstuffs in one's ear rather than one's mouth. We can see from common affairs or learn from the Gita that we constantly change our body, but the real self exists eternally. The craziness of thinking that our eternal self is the temporary body is maya. But because the majority of people are in maya consciousness, this has become the standard of sanity in modern civilization. The proper use of the human form of life is to inquire with dissatisfaction about this state of suffering in maya. Usually when someone is afflicted with a disease, he will say with a feeling of dull resignation, "All right, let me go to the doctor." But one who inquires, "Why do I have to suffer? Who am I? Why must I endure disease and old age?" is intelligent. When such a process of inquiry begins, the sincere, determined searcher finally ends with God.

These are not questions of mental exercise or philosophical speculation. Rather, the inquiries, "Who am I? What am I meant to do? Where do I go after death?" are questions that are dormant and natural in all living entities. These questions are asked by intelligent men, and the real answers to these inquiries satisfy the innermost need of the soul. Of course, one may ask such questions without sincerity, or one may ask them of someone who is not an authorized spiritual master, and so one may go on suffering birth after birth because it is very difficult to free oneself from the stringent laws of material nature. Therefore, among the qualifications of a devotee is gravity. One should listen seriously when questions about suffering in life are discussed, and one should not think that simply because one is young or intoxicated, there are actually no problems. The problems of birth, death, disease and old age cannot be done away with by medicine or technology or poetry or philosophy, nor should one think that one can become God and thus become free from material nature's stringent laws. Actually it is very simple: maya is there because of our false consciousness. And it can be removed as soon as the consciousness is changed to reality. If a servant is trying to act as king, he will be frustrated because his real position is servant. But if he lives as a servant, he can enjoy all the facilities of his real position, without the anxieties of trying to be something he is not. Therefore, everyone should understand that this material life is a diseased state and that because we are diseased, we cannot enjoy. We must first become well. We must first get out of maya. Anyone who is teaching a process whereby people can enjoy without changing from bodily consciousness to real or spiritual consciousness, Krsna consciousness, is cheating, just as a doctor cheats if he tells an ailing patient, "Please get up and enjoy." No! The true doctor who has diagnosed an illness, says to the person, "You cannot enjoy now: you must lie in bed, take these medicines, and when you become well, then you can enjoy."

Maya traps us by offering us allurements in the way of sensual pleasures and by confining us to designations of the ego. By surrender to Krsna these attractions vanish before the superior attractions of true spiritual life. Of the sensual pleasures, the chief is sex life. The difficulty with sex life is that it necessitates trying to enjoy on the bodily platform, whereas our real nature is not satisfied by the sexual act, but is left unsatiated, just as a hungry man is left unsatisfied if one buys him expensive clothes or takes him to see a movie. Impetuously, madly, one thinks that he can become happy by sex life, but after repeated attempts, the complete satisfaction is still not attained. The satisfaction is only flickering. The Srimad-Bhagavatam states that by engagement in illicit association with women a man loses the qualities of truthfulness, cleanliness, mercifulness, gravity, spiritual intelligence, shyness, austerity, fame, forgiveness, control of the mind and senses, and fortune. Even when a man has sex with his wife and decides to raise a family, he becomes trapped in a desire to maintain economic status and social prestige and to elevate the material standard of his family. In this way maya manipulates a man by his attraction for sex and leads him away from all possibilities of taking to the path of self-realization and real eternal enjoyment. We must understand that although maya is dictating, we are victimized only because of misuse of our own free will.