II श्रीराम जय राम जय जय राम II

माया माया सब कहैं, माया लखै न कोय I
जो मन से ना उतरे, माया कहिए सोय II

Maya or illusion is everywhere around us. It is an obvious fact for all of us. If we but look deeply, then things often end up not really being what they initially appear to be. In the modern world, we live in a turbulent ocean of appearances, impressions and influences. Unless we learn to probe beyond these surface waves, we are unlikely to find the truth of life and will often be deceived, not only by others but also by ourselves, as each one of us has his or her illusions about self and world as well. Every person we encounter and every object we see hides a deeper story or mystery. We may know a person by name as our neighbor but there are other aspects of their lives that we do not know, both good and bad.
When monkeys are captured,
a narrow-necked pot, filled with grains and other eatables that monkeys love, is placed on the ground as a bait. As a monkey comes to take the grains, he puts his hand into the narrow-necked pot and grab hold of the grains. Now, since his hand is full of grains, he cannot take his hand out of the narrow-necked pot and escape. In greed, thus, the foolish monkey does not open his hand and let go of the grains so that he can escape. On account of his greed, the monkey gets trapped and caught. Consequently, the monkey loses the freedom he had in the forest of abundance of grains and fresh fruits of his liking. In other words, for a few grains he loses his entire world! Now caught and bound, he cannot freely play and enjoy life to his heart’s liking. Instead, he is made to dance door to door by his captive!
Similarly, the monkey-mind of humans have chained itself to the narrow-necked pot of the "I am this body" idea and it dances to the tune of Maya, the imagination of the deluded mind, that never ends, and never exists.

"Kabir says, We, ego or individual beings, with unending imaginations of the conditioned mind are the dancers in this Maya's dance. The mind's love of Maya makes it dance to the beats of ignorance, restlessness, craving for sensual pleasures, fears, vain thoughts and attachments. Our minds are in bondage due to our desires and fears. Sufferings befall who cling to mind and body and are attached. So long we continue to imagine the phenomenal world to be real, we subject ourselves to an unenlightened existence called the birth and death cycle and so long the deluded mind continues, the dance of illusoriness also continues. As the doubts are removed, one realises the transient nature of the world-appearance, fraught with impermanence and change, and the dance of Maya ceases to be. The freedom from all attachments and ignorance is the end of the dance of conditioned mind or dance of Maya. The reason we are unable to experience it at the present time is our deluded and conditioned mind."

II श्रीराम जय राम जय जय राम II

II श्रीसद्गुरूचरणार्पणमस्तु II