Guruji (article):
1. MAYA: Illusion
Things are not what they seem to be. How do we perceive the world around
us? Through our senses. Either through sound, or touch, or form, or taste or
smell, or through thinking we come to know about this world. All these act like
filters and limitations. Let us look at the nature of the filters and limitations
SABDA = sound: We HEAR only what is in this room. We cant hear what is far
away.Also we can hear only the sounds in the frequency range of some 15
cycles/sec to 15000. We don't hear the ultra or infra sounds which some animals
can.
SPARSA= touch: We feel the TOUCH only within a few millimeters of our
surface. Beyond that we don't feel any thing. Our skin acts as a sharp cut-off
filter within and outside of the body surface.
ROOPA=form: We SEE nearby objects much bigger than far away objects. This
follows the inverse square law. Also we can only see one octave of frequencies
in the visible range of electro-magnetic spectrum. Also we see things only from
a single direction or perspective. We cannot see a thing from all angles, and
all distances. How would an object look if we see it from all sides at once?
From all distances? With all magnifications? Would it be the same as our normal
vision ? Hint: spinning top with pictures on it. How would the world appear if
we had X ray vision? Would our skin based cosmetics industry survive?
RASA=taste: We TASTE only what is on our tongue. But not what is not on it.
GANDHA=smell: We SMELL only what enters our noses. Not beyond that.
MANAS=mind: Our MIND reproduces these sensations through memory, and can
some times overcome some limitations of sensory filters by the powers of
logical thinking. Yet, it cannot penetrate other minds and read what is in
other thoughts as if the thoughts were its own. It can remember the past and
sometimes the future too; but that is rare. Thus the mind as an instrument has
its own limitations. It is also a filter.
MAYA: To assume that the world we are perceiving is really as it seems to
be, is therefore not warranted. So, our experience is an illusion. All the
senses and the mind are distorting it in so many ways. They are so immediate,
so intimately connected to us that we do not even suspect that our perceptions
are limited, and that the world we experience is not what is really out there,
but is only our interpretation of it through the filters of our senses.
Thus each of these senses and mind are MAGNIFYING THE LOCAL and
DEMAGNIFYING THE NONLOCAL experiences. We are seeing a limited world which
bears no resemblance to the reality.
What we know or can know is infinitesimal. What we do not see or know is
infinite: it is far more important than what we see. In this sense, we can say
the world of our experience is an illusion.
2. AHAM MAYA: Ego is illusion Ego is the idea: this is me, these are mine;
this is not me, these are not my people.
Given the nature of our perceptions, it is natural that we give importance
to local experiences and no importance to non-local experiences. The ideas of I
and mine, that this is what I am and these are my people, forms the core of
ego. All my life I try to protect these ideas.
We understand that it is NOT our fault that we have the ideas of I and mine
so deeply embedded in us. But it is in the very nature of our senses that these
concepts are embedded. If we wish to ovecome the limitations of ego, we have to
let go of our attachments to senses and the information they bring. Just as I
can't get an idea of a carpet if I attach a microscope to my eye even if I
research for a thousand years, I cannot get an idea of the universe with the
limiting vision. I have to let go of the microscope; I have to let go of the
senses. Then only I get a chance to perceive the reality. The freedom we talk
about is the freedom from the senses, or attachment to sense based information.
The separation between I and not I, mine and not mine comes from the local
nature of senses. Also, we judge the information we receive based on what is
good or bad for us. We notice that good brings us happiness, reduces misery,
and preserves our identity,that is, maintains our separateness from the world. Bad
is the opposite of these things. Judgments form the core of the structures of
ego.
Hatred, doubt, fear, shame, aversion, family, race, conduct: these 8
passions form the sub-structures of ego.
We HATE something or someone who brings misery to us.
We DOUBT if what is in front of us is good or bad.
We FEAR animals or persons unknown to us, who speak a foreign tongue.
We are ASHAMED of doing things we really want to do.
We develop AVERSION to things we
judge as bad. We form the idea of our FAMILY and try to do everything for them.
We identify with our RACE and assume other values must be bad. We believe
that we have to conform to the norms of CONDUCT without questioning for fear of
punishment or rejection.
Thus we develop the emotions of Hatred, Doubt, Fear, Shame, Aversion,
Family, Race and right Conduct from trying to protect the ideas of I and mine.
These are the sub structures of ego. All because of the nature of our
sense-based information.
Ego is separation, of the one reality into two polar opposites: Subject and
object. Ego is illusion; illusion is based on sensory information which filters
reality. Ego breaks down if
1. we understand the nature of senses,
2. the need to let go of our attachment to senses,
3. train ourselves to work free of filters and limitations,
4. and finally let go of sense limits by suspending judgments.
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