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Why is there illusion?

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. 

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Advaita after Caitanya Mahāprabhu

Bhakti causes total disregard for liberation.

Śrīla Rūpa Gosvāmī, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu (1.1.33)

On the simplest level, Western and Eastern cosmologies differ on a basic question: is the world one or two?

In Western thought, the question can be traced back to the very first writings of ancient Greek thinkers. They held that there are two completely different realities: the world of spirit and the world of material things. This idea is constant throughout the history of Western thought and has a strong influence on Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

By contrast, many branches of Oriental philosophy, including Hinduism, build upon the notion of advaita, non-dualism. Advaita is the notion that reality is one. In particular, it posits that spirit or soul and material reality are non-different.

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What is guru?

A devotee who is thus attached to the worship of his guru doesn’t need to practice any worship of the Supreme Lord.

Jīva Gosvāmī, Bhakti Sandarbha, 237

What do we see when we see the guru? What do we hear when we hear the guru? What do we feel when we touch the guru?

The Sanskrit syllables gu-ru literally mean ‘remover of darkness’. In other words, the guru is not someone who gives something, some gift of knowledge, of mercy, or enlightenment. The guru is someone who takes something away. The guru is not a source of enlightenment or wisdom but rather one who clears away the blockages to the knowledge or wisdom we already have.

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Love stories about us

In a poignant scene in Verse 89 of Śrī Vilāpa Kusumāñjali, Rādhā leads her maidservant Tulasi mañjarī to a secret cave in Govardhana Hill to teach her songs about divine love. Whose love? Her own.

Rādhā, the embodiment of divine love, knows and feels every emotion available to our mundane hearts, and more. But she is very shy about teaching songs about these emotions.

The mundane mind can understand this. After all, they are songs about Rādhā’s most intimate and confidential pastimes with her divine lover Mohan. The songs are an intimate history of their divine love affair.

The songs, which Rādhā only shares with her dear maidservants, can be used to revive her dear Mohan in case he should faint in the throes of passion. By singing to him the story of his own love, he is brought back to consciousness.

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Surprised by love

Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta Adī-līlā, Chapter 4 describes the ‘confidential’ reasons, for Kṛṣṇa’s decision to take birth as Caitaniya Mahāprabhu. In verse 4.28 Kṛṣṇa declares that he will appear as a pure devotee and carry out pastimes ‘by which even I am amazed’.

It is difficult for us to imagine that God himself should be amazed by anything at all. Isn’t God by nature all-knowing, all-seeing, all-feeling? What could possibly amaze him? 

The answer is as miraculous as Bhakti itself: Kṛṣṇa is amazed by his own feelings.

Indeed there is much amazement in the forests of Vṛndavan. The written prayers, poems and dramas of the closest associates of CaitanyaMahāhaprabhu recount often how many the actors in the divine pastimes—but most of all Mohan—experience surprise.

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What is śraddhā?

śraddhā [faith, faith in goodness, respect, devotion] 

Faith is a common idea for most of us. It’s at the center of all religious and spiritual practices because religious and spiritual practices invite us to think and act on the basis of things we cannot be sure of.

Faith is typically about knowledge, about we know and don’t know. But it also invites us to make assumptions about what knowledge is, and to assume that the having this knowledge is better than not having it. 

Faith in our modern sense means setting aside rational scepticism or doubt about what we know until a later time when that knowledge can be tested scientifically. Faith in this sense means knowledge that is only meaningful if it can be verified by science.

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What is ānanda?

ānanda [pleasure, happiness, ecstasy, joy, bliss, transcendental bliss] 

In classical Indian thought the word ānanda appears quite commonly to describe the blissful qualities of the demi-gods in a way that resembles our own mundane happiness.

But in the writings of the Gaudiya Vaishnavas ānanda has an entirely different flavour and purpose. It is not a quality that is had, but the result of an action, not a property but a movement, not a gift, but a giving. It is the experience of pleasure that comes alive the through the energy and action  of devotional love and service. 

In the Śrī brahma-saṁhitā, so revered by Śrīman Mahāprabhu, ānanda is described as the extraordinary, transcendental bliss enjoyed by God when all the emotional and spiritual experiences of the world are concentrated into one experience. 

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What is audārya?

audārya [generosity, magnanimity, benevolence, compassion, nobility]

In Western society we learn that generosity is a virtue. We consider it praiseworthy to give: to give gifts, to give food, or to give money. And yet, what are we giving when we give these material things?

What is it we have that can be given? We enter this material world with nothing, and we leave it with nothing. We have nothing and therefore we have nothing to give. 

This is because to ‘have’ anything at all means to live in the knowledge that we will will one day not have it, and that we once in the past did not have it.  To have is to understanding that having is temporary.  Paradoxically, to have is to not have. How can we give what we don’t have?

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