यह माया है चूहडी, और चूहडा कीजो I बाप-पूत उरभाय कै, संग ना काहो केहो II
Wake up, O mind! Wake up, from the endless slumber of Maya, says Kabir, for Maya is the sense-bent, deluded or conditioned mind. One caught in the vortex of Maya, loses control over his senses and plunges into the pitch darkness of ignorance. He is fooled by the mirage-like, enchanting and deceptive appearance of Maya, gets attached to it, and suffers the consequences of his error. The cosmic illusion Maya that makes the mind duality-stricken and doubt-ridden is not trustworthy.
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 body-consciousness, the rule of the senses or Maya.
In the epic Mahabharata, when Duryodhana enters the hall of illusion (Mayasabha), he loses his way, becomes confused and envious. Seeing his predicament, Draupadi laughs at him. At once, he becomes uncontrollably angry, feels insulted and vows to take revenge against Pandavas (his cousins) for their audacity to display their power and wealth to belittle him in the presence of women. It was in the hall of illusions that the seeds of the great Mahabharata war were sown, which germinated in due course and ultimately consumed the whole Kuru clan, causing them untold misery and the destruction of their prosperous empire. The epic Mahabharata shows in many ways how human beings can bring misery and destruction upon themselves and others through their weaknesses under the influence of Maya. The great Mayasabha of the Mahabharata symbolizes our world, which is the home of Maya, where truths are not self-evident except to an awakened mind. The world in which we live is not very different from the hall of illusions which Duryodhana entered. It is a giant illusion in itself, where our egos grow in strength, experience emotions and where we assume one thing for another and suffer from confusion, delusion and emotional turmoil. If Mayasabha symbolizes the world, Duryodhana symbolizes the egoistic individual (jiva) and Draupadi personifies Nature or Maya who instigates beings into different states of delusion, confusion and mental or emotional instability. Maya is ubiquitous in this world, and none is spared by it, not even Gods. The influence of Maya manifests in every aspect of our lives. It clouds our judgment and creates confusion and conflicting states whereby people fail to see things as they are or make wise choices. Maya strengthens the ego, which makes things more difficult. It is the same state which made Arjuna experience the mental turmoil in the Bhagavadgita. His belief that he was a physical being made him view the entire situation in the battlefield from a limited perspective as a battle between two groups of mortal beings rather than a divine intervention by God to restore Dharma. We suffer from the same problem since we do not discern the play of God in the phenomena of the world. Deep within our minds skepticism lurks like a shadow and vacillate between faith and disbelief about God and ourselves. The body itself is a creation of Maya, subject to Maya, the field of Maya and personifies the state of Maya. So is the mind. Both act as the prison house of the Self and do not let it go, until one is completely freed from it.
Kabir urges us to engage in this world, but with a detached attitude, the quality of shunning worldly attractions. It is being in this world, but not of it. In other words, it is having a mind open to everything, but attached to nothing. Kabir urges us not to waste this rare human birth in frivolous material pursuits, since one is not sure what might be in store in the next."
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