Why must we live in a world of illusion? Why would the creator of the universe, perfect in all aspects, create a world in which illusion seems to be everywhere?
In Vedic philosophy we come to understand the meaning of illusion through the concept of māyā.
Māyā is a key to understanding the difference between traditional Western dualist thought, and Eastern non-dualist thought. In the West we are taught to understand the world as consisting of two realities: mind (or soul) and body. In Eastern thought we understand reality as being one. Mind, soul and body are understood as part of one and the same reality. If we perceive the body or any material thing to be real, it is because we are under the grip of māyā: illusion.
In both the Upanishads and the Bhagavad-gītā, māyā is described as the power of the divine, the power of Kṛṣṇa. But why would the creator want us to suffer in māyā?
The answer becomes clear when we reflect on the meaning of illusion.
Illusion is not the same as falsehood. Illusion is not the opposite of truth. Indeed, illusion holds a truth. It hides a truth. We are attracted to this truth. Our attraction to this hidden truth, is our first experience of longing, the vital energy of the soul. There is only māyā where there is truth. Indeed, māyā is a kind of guarantee of the truth of our souls. It is through māyā that we can relish the pleasure-giving journey to our true selves.
Bhakti sādhana—our spiritual practice—is in its most simple terms this journey to our own soul. The goal of our practice is to understand who we are spiritually, to realise our spiritual self, our spiritual identity, our spiritual form (svarūpa), and ultimately to discover ourselves of as servants of love.
Bhakti teaches that higher than love is the practice of loving. Bhakti shows us that higher than Kṛṣṇa, who is all love, is Rādhā, the giver of love, the energy of love, the caring, feminine service of love.
Understanding māyā, the illusion in our lives, means understanding that are path is one of having love, but serving love, practicing love, in the mood of Rādhā.
Here is an illustration.
Every morning I awaken to find my beloved partner. To my material consciousness I see him as a material body and I relate to him as an ego and as a mind. Perhaps he even has a beautiful physical form, a strong ego, and a brilliant mind.
But the true love I feel for him is not attached to these things. It is directed toward his soul. For us jīvas, this love for the soul of the other is almost always imperfect, confused by my attraction to his physical form, his ego and his mind. My true love for my partner is covered in part by illusion, by māyā.
But why does true love for my partner remain covered by māyā? What controls māyā? My experience of māyā is determined by the level of realisation of my own soul. The more I realise my own spiritual identity, my own spiritual form (svarūpa) the more I will see the reality of my partner as a soul, a spiritual form, and the more my love for him will deepen spiritually.
So the purpose of māyā is not to confuse us. It’s to regulate the spiritual journey to our own soul, to guide us, at the right tempo, in the right direction, along the path to our own spiritual identity.
And why does the journey need regulating? Why can’t it happen instantly?
We remember the core inspiration of Bhakti: loving is higher than love, Rādhā is higher than Kṛṣṇa. Our goal is not to be love, but to give love through devotion service.
We don’t want to be divine love itself, we want to be divine lovers, practitioners of love. Bhakti does not teach us to possess the divine but to long for the divine.
Bhakti is the practice of longing. The training field for this longing is the gradual realisation of māyā.
By slowly but surely clearing away the coverings of māyā , we gradually find our way to the divinity of our own svarūpa, and we thereby find our way to the divinity of all jīvas,
Māyā is the path of longing for pure love, of relishing the imperfections in the love we experience, and of evolving toward understanding the relationship between the two.