दैवीह्येषा गुणमयी मम माया दुरत्यया ।मामेव ये प्रपद्यन्ते मायामेतां तरन्ति ते ॥
daivīhyeṣā guṇamayī mama māyā duratyayāmāmeva ye prapadyante māyāmetāṁ taranti te
This is my divine Maya of the gunas and it is hard to overcome; those cross beyond it who approach Me.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
AI translation
Essays on the Gita
To Me who turn and come, they alone cross over beyond this Maya.
The Gita explains the ordinary imperfect action of the creature by its subjection to the mechanism of Prakriti and its limitation by the self-representations of Maya. These two terms are only complementary aspects of one and the same effective force of divine consciousness. Maya is not essentially illusion,—the element or appearance of illusion only enters in by the ignorance of the lower Prakriti, Maya of the three modes of Nature,—it is the divine consciousness in its power of various self-representation of its being, while Prakriti is the effective force of that consciousness which operates to work out each such self-representation according to its own law and fundamental idea, svabhāva and svadharma, in its own proper9·8 quality and particular force of working, guṇa-karma. “Leaning—pressing down upon my own Nature (Prakriti) I create (loose forth into various being) all this multitude of existences, all helplessly subject to the control of Nature.” Those who know not the Divine lodged in the human body, are ignorant of it because they are grossly subject to this mechanism of Prakriti, helplessly subject to its mental limitations and acquiescent in them, and dwell in an Asuric nature that deludes with desire and9·12 bewilders with egoism the will and the intelligence, mohinīṁ prakṛtiṁ śritāḥ. For the Purushottama within is not readily manifest to any and every being; he conceals himself in a thick7·25 cloud of darkness or a bright cloud of light, utterly he envelops7·13–14 and wraps himself in his Yogamaya.* “All this world,” says the Gita, “because it is bewildered by the three states of being determined by the modes of Nature, fails to recognise me, for this my divine Maya of the modes of Nature is hard to get beyond; those cross beyond it who approach Me; but those who dwell in the Asuric nature of being, have their knowledge reft from them by Maya.” In other words, there is the inherent consciousness of the divine in all, for in all the Divine dwells; but he dwells there covered by his Maya and the essential self-knowledge of beings is reft from them, turned into the error of egoism by the action of Maya, the action of the mechanism of Prakriti. Still by drawing back from the mechanism of Nature to her inner and secret Master man can become conscious of the indwelling Divinity.
- nāhaṁ prakāśaḥ sarvasya yogamāyā-samāvṛtaḥ.
But these two, the status and immutability of the Soul and the action of the Soul and its mutability in Nature, actually coexist. And this would be an anomaly irreconcilable except by some such theory as that of Maya or else of a double and divided being, if there were not a supreme reality of the Soul’s existence of which these are the two contrary aspects, but which is limited by neither of them. We have seen that the Gita finds this in the Purushottama. The supreme Soul is the Ishwara,9·11 God, the Master of all being, sarvaloka-maheśvara. He puts forth his own active nature, his Prakriti, — svāṁ prakṛtim, says the Gita, — manifest in the Jiva, worked out by the svabhāva, “own-becoming”, of each Jiva according to the law of the divine being in it, the great lines of which each Jiva must follow, but worked out too in the egoistic nature by the bewildering play3·28 of the three gunas upon each other, guṇā guṇeṣu vartante. That7·14 is the traiguṇyamayī māyā, the Maya hard for man to get beyond, duratyayā, — yet can one get beyond it by transcending the three gunas. For while all this is done by the Ishwara through his Nature-Power in the Kshara, in the Akshara he is untouched, indifferent, regarding all equally, extended within all, yet above all. In all three he is the Lord, the supreme Ishwara in the highest, the presiding and all-pervading Impersonality, prabhu and vibhu, in the Akshara, and the immanent Will and present active Lord in the Kshara. He is free in his impersonality even while working out the play of his personality; he is not either merely impersonal or personal, but one and the same being in two aspects; he is the impersonal-personal, nirguṇo guṇī, of the Upanishad. By him all has been willed even before it is worked out, — as he says of the still living11·33 Dhartarashtrians, “already have they been slain by Me,” mayā nihatāḥ pūrvam eva, — and the working out by Nature is only the result of his Will; yet by virtue of his impersonality behind4·13 he is not bound by his works, kartāram akartāram.
But what again is meant by saying that the Divine is not in the becomings, the forms and affections of the lower nature, even the sattwic, though they all are in his being? In a sense he must evidently be in them, otherwise they could not exist. But what is meant is that the true and supreme spiritual nature of the Divine is not imprisoned there; they are only phenomena in his being created out of it by the action of the ego and the ignorance. The ignorance presents everything to us in an inverted vision and at least a partially falsified experience. We imagine that the soul is in the body, almost a result and derivation from the body; even we so feel it: but it is the body that is in the soul and a result and derivation from the soul. We think of the spirit as a small part of us—the Purusha who is no bigger than the thumb—in this great mass of material and mental phenomena: in reality, the latter for all its imposing appearance is a very small thing in the infinity of the being of the spirit. So it is here; in much the same sense these things are in the Divine rather than the Divine in these things. This lower nature of the three gunas which creates so false a view of things and imparts to them an inferior character is a Maya, a power of illusion, by which it is not meant that it is all non-existent or deals with unrealities, but that it bewilders our knowledge, creates false values, envelops us in ego, mentality, sense, physicality, limited intelligence and there conceals from us the supreme truth of our existence. This illusive Maya hides from us the Divine that we are, the infinite7·14 and imperishable spirit. “By these three kinds of becoming which are of the nature of the gunas, this whole world is bewildered and does not recognise Me supreme beyond them and imperishable.” If we could see that that Divine is the real truth of our existence, all else also would change to our vision, assume its true character and our life and action acquire the divine values and move in the law of the divine nature.
But why then, since the Divine is there after all and the divine nature at the root even of these bewildering derivations, since we are the Jiva and the Jiva is that, is this Maya so hard to overcome, māyā duratyayā? Because it is still the Maya of the Divine, daivī hyeṣā guṇamayī mama māyā; “this is my divine Maya of the gunas.” It is itself divine and a development from the nature of the Divine, but the Divine in the nature of the gods; it is daivī, of the godheads or, if you will, of the Godhead, but of the Godhead in its divided subjective and lower cosmic aspects, sattwic, rajasic and tamasic. It is a cosmic veil which the Godhead has spun around our understanding; Brahma, Vishnu and Rudra have woven its complex threads; the Shakti, the Supreme Nature is there at its base and is hidden in its every tissue. We have to work out this web in ourselves and turn through it and from it leaving it behind us when its use is finished, turn from the gods to the original and supreme Godhead in whom we shall discover at the same time the last sense of the gods and their works and the inmost spiritual verities of our own imperishable existence.7·14 “To Me who turn and come, they alone cross over beyond this Maya.”
Writings in Bengali
Illuminating:
Paramesthi is Brahma; but not that Brahma who is named Hiranyagarbha, the overseer of the work of creation, the enjoyer of the subtle. It is the Luminous One (Taijasa), Vasudeva. That Paramesthi is the Hiranyagarbha Supreme beyond the Supreme. The word Ishtha is ancient and indicates supremacy, applied as a suffix later, as in Balishtha (strongest), Garishtha (heaviest). That Hiranyagarbha, formed of Light, does not resort to form, does not attain to manifestation, does not descend, does not do anything; in the Supreme Light, he only formulates. Therefore, the name is Hiranyagarbha, and the name is Taijasa. The context of the story—that Ashvalayana approached a Hiranyagarbha of this kind according to rule and said “Teach”—does not fit. But Brahma, the God of Men, having crossed the Maya consisting of the three gunas by the power of Yoga, became Trigunatita (beyond the gunas); resorting to the Rajasic quality like one indifferent, he enters the Supreme Light. In the Supreme Light, he resorts to Vasudeva in the form of the Supreme Hiranyagarbha. At the beginning of the cycle (Kalpa), he comes forth, known by the name of Brahma. He lives for the time extending to the end of ten Kalpas—a thousand Yugas—and creates.
মায়াবাদ সত্যের উপর প্রতিষ্ঠিত। উপনিষদেও বলা হইয়াছে যে, ঈশ্বর পরম মায়াবী, তাঁহার মায়া দ্বারা দৃশ্য জগৎ সৃষ্টি করিয়াছেন। গীতায়ও শ্রীকৃষ্ণ বলিয়াছেন যে, ত্রৈগুণ্যময়ী মায়াই সমস্ত জগৎ ব্যাপ্ত করিয়া রহিয়াছে। একই অনির্ব্বচনীয় ব্রহ্ম জগতের মূল সত্য, সমস্ত প্রপঞ্চ তাঁহার অভিব্যক্তি মাত্র, স্বয়ং পরিণামশীল ও নশ্বর। যদি ব্রহ্ম একই সনাতন সত্য হয়, ভেদ ও বহুত্ব কোথা হইতে প্রসূত, কিসের মধ্যে প্রতিষ্ঠিত, কিরূপে উৎপন্ন, এই প্রশ্ন অনিবার্য্য। ব্রহ্ম যদি একমাত্র সত্য হয়, তবে ব্রহ্ম হইতেই ভেদ ও বহুত্ব প্রসূত, ব্রহ্মের মধ্যে প্রতিষ্ঠিত, ব্রহ্মের কোন অনির্ব্বচনীয় শক্তি দ্বারা উৎপন্ন, ইহাই উপনিষদের উত্তর। সেই শক্তিকে কোথাও মায়াবীর মায়া, কোথাও পুরুষ-অধিষ্ঠিত প্রকৃতি, কোথাও ঈশ্বরের বিদ্যা-অবিদ্যাময়ী ইচ্ছাশক্তি বলা হইয়াছে। ইহাতে তার্কিকের মন সন্তুষ্ট হইতে পারে নাই; কিরূপে এক বহু হয়, অভেদে ভেদ উৎপন্ন হয়, তাহার সন্তোষজনক ব্যাখ্যা হয় নাই। শেষে একটী সহজ উত্তর মনে উদয় হইল, এক বহু হয় না, সনাতন অভেদে ভেদ উৎপন্ন হইতে পারে না, বহু মিথ্যা, ভেদ অলীক, সনাতন অদ্বিতীয় আত্মার মধ্যে স্বপ্নের ন্যায় ভাসমান মায়া মাত্র, আত্মাই সত্য, আত্মাই সনাতন। ইহাতেও গোল, মায়া আবার কি, মায়া কোথা হইতে প্রসূত, কিসের মধ্যে প্রতিষ্ঠিত, কিরূপে উৎপন্ন হয়? শঙ্কর উত্তর করিলেন, মায়া কি তাহা বলা যায় না, মায়া অনির্ব্বচনীয়, মায়া প্রসূত হয় না, মায়া চিরকাল আছে অথচ নাই। গোল মিটিল না, সন্তোষজনক উত্তর পাওয়া গেল না। এই
The Arya — text not in the CWSA
Gita VII. 1–28
