Maya, Brahman & Karma: The True Standing of Hinduism

(I’ve written this more like a rhapsody because I got terribly confused in between!)

Amongst the various doctrines of Hinduism, the Vedas and the associated Vedantas play an extremely important role. The Vedas are classified into four volumes: Rig, Sama, Atharva, Yajur, whereas Vedanta represents the ‘end of knowledge’, rather the ‘complete knowledge’ (‘anta‘, Sanskrit for end). Now, the Vedas have to do with man’s realisation of Brahman, or the universal truth, whereas the Vedanta focus on the illusions of Maya, or the indescribable. The concept of Maya was first introduced by the great philosopher Adi Sankara, and deals with the illusions of the Universe. According to Hinduism, Brahman is the sole universal truth, thereby depriving Maya of its truisms. On the other hand, Brahman is realised only through transcendental meditation to pierce the veil of Maya, there by restoring Maya‘s truth. This is the reason she is referred to as the indescribable, since her truth contradicts itself. The concept of Maya itself is extremely difficult to comprehend. Maya is said to have been born from the dream of the Supreme Lord, and she carries forth the characteristics of the universe that make it perceptible, tangible. There is a good metaphor for godliness in this vision: when the Brahman is reflected on Maya, God is the image.

Maya

Here is a good example by Sri Sankaracharya as to the definition of Maya.

“Though the emission of ejaculate onto sleeping garments or bedclothes is yielded by the natural experience of copulation in a wet dream, the stain of the garment is perceived as real upon waking whilst the copulation and lovemaking was not true or real. Both sexual partners in the dream are unreal as they are but dream bodies, and the sexual union and conjugation was illusory, but the emission of the generative fluid was real. This is a metaphor for the resolution of duality into lucid unity.”

The meaning of duality mentioned above is twofold. Duality, in many schools of thought, is the representation of the good powers in the Universe, and the malignant powers. Some religious beliefs recognise both as Supreme Powers (bitheism), whereas some deign the evil as the altercation of the good. Maya, in her being, is born from the dream of the Supreme Lord, which in the case of Hinduism, is representative of the good. The other duality in question is a reference to the two elements of body and mind.

If Brahman were to be constituted as the soul of the self, then the mind would come to represent the knot that firmly establishes the relationship between matter and consciousness. Matter, again, is but a section of Maya herself, and therefore, the perception of the self as being real and true is derived from Maya. Does this mean the self is also illusory? If so, then the body is only a garment. If not, then the body is real and assumes the form of the Truth. But Brahman being declared the sole truth, the concept of Karma comes into action. The mortal is, now, enchained to a cycle of births and deaths until he attains Moksha from Samsara. Karma is the causality of everything and not the cause itself. Man errs. In doing so, his payment for his sins results in him assuming multiple bodies (or garments). My grandfather used to say that if I trampled an ant, I would be reborn as an ant in my next life. However, if the act is committed unknowingly or at the behest of fulfilling a higher purpose, it is not constituted as a sin. For example, there was this tale of a rich merchant who proudly harboured the thought that he had never committed a sin in his life. However, one day, he stamped a cockroach to death. Paranoid and attempting to release himself from accusations of being a sinner, he comes out of his house and hands the cockroach to Ram the sweeper on the street, and asks him to partake of the sin completely. When judgment day arrives for both the men, the sweeper is not consigned to Hell. The merchant is curious and asks the Lord why. The Lord replies that in being a sweeper, Ram’s duty was to kill little insects that troubled other people, and therefore, he was not sinning in killing those insects. Anyway, the presence of Karma Yoga is what results in rebirths. However, at the end of these cycles of life, when a person attains Moksha, the elements of the Universe are finally understood as being the various fixtures of Maya, including Karma itself.

When I, as a child, was exposed to Hinduism and its various beliefs and scriptures, I was of the impression that they were all true (like how a child thinks the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is true). But I never really thought Hinduism had such firm basis on the argumentative verges of philosophical thinking. I  may not know what the Brahman actually stands for other than being the Universal truth, but the reasoning behind it seems intact. The ideas of meditation (as a means to attain Brahman) have totally swept over my head other than for the sole reason of finding peace. But meditation itself has a deep inner meaning I learn. To discover the One true self within ourselves is no simple task. There are tales buried in the many thousand pages of the Hindu scriptures of great sages undertaking strict penances in order to realise Brahman. We, as humans, lay buried beneath the infinitely many layers of Maya and her imagery that, given the complexity of our supposedly illusory lives, we can’t truly recognise Brahman even if we were to stumble across it. In the metaphor I mentioned above, God is the image of Brahman on Maya. It is our belief that godliness is true, and that God as a being does exist. It is a general belief as well as a consensus amongst most believers that the concepts of Maya, Brahman and Karma are very complex and intricate. Many worship God just ask for a favour without really understanding that they are asking the True Self hidden within them for a favour! It is the understanding of these principles that delivers Hinduism its true standing.

Rain Under My Umbrella

RAIN UNDER MY UMBRELLA: A TRIBUTE I have always enjoyed the rain. Mornings find a new invitation in them when I find that it is raining. The day seems to begin with a unique grandeur, and life seems to commence for the moment on a special note. The leaves have bathed, and the greenery seems refreshed. It strikes a brilliant contrast with the concrete jungle, a welcome change. The smell of mud is carried through the air. It is as if everything has been wrought anew for an occasion such as this. The lingering raindrops on the glass windows leave invisible stains on my memory, only to bring me to these minutes later in the day when the sun has dawned again from behind the clouds as a reprieve for the breeders of evil on this commoditized earth. I dwell in glory when it rains, and I find rain to be the ideal dawn of good, and the sunshine the evil dusk that brightens stone, wood and metal up: you will believe it is the truth for that is what you see as the cause and that is what you perceive as the effect. But what of the truth? But I believe you are to be forgiven, my poor dear friend, for it is only natural, and above all else, there is no time for such pursuits.

My sleep dissolves into awareness when I hear the rain splash into little drops of nothingness on my window. I wake up and draw the curtains open. The sight is glorious. The night sky has been brightened up by the scattered light from the clouds. It seems eerie, like something so unnatural. Science can only tell me what happens and why, but I for one know how it happens: the beauty of it all. You must be a soulless being to not look upon such a sight and not feel humbled. More than being humbled, I feel defeated. Humility does not demand a defeat in battle, but a defeat demands more than humility to be complete. And that is how I feel. If I, at that moment, were to be commanded by God to fly, I would not. I am but a human being, and I am but prone to err. I cannot fathom the universe, and I cannot fathom my mind either. I orient myself in space through physical manifestations of the requirements of the soul, and I would deign those below me as my inferiors. I would demand servitude in my folly. But I would also condemn myself unto eternity in this living, and when anyone else calls upon me to take flight, to soar above spirits that humble me, I am in contradiction with myself. Be it my fall, but a fall restricted to your perception. I am victor, for I have triumphed through the steadfast belief in my beliefs.

I have often wondered whether philosophy per se has an answer to my question. Just as nihilism confines evolution of the mind, I doubt it would. And my only questions are that in defining godliness, would I be permitted to redefine God? Who is God? Is any a God restricted to some confining parameters in order to be ordained so? If yes, then is not the godliness then lost? If no, is not the definition of godliness itself lost?

Anyway, in condemning myself, if condemnation it is, to the servitude to rain, I have equated the inability to spot a single raindrop among a million to the fear, and therefore the inhibition, to look upon one. At 2 AM last night, when I drew the curtains open, it was raining as though it were a prelude to the Great Flood. The glow from the skies was overwhelming, and the street lamps faded in brilliance, if that. I wondered if I would be allowed to look upon the individual molecules of this belief. I, a mere mortal, and The Rain, my God. But here is where the tale takes a turn. My ignorance, my temper, my pride, my ego, my humaneness took over. A belief is only as strong as the weakest believer! And I believe in You! Will you not let me take a glance?! As simple and as silly as it may seem, I did get a glance, but only through the eyes of another man who I thought was my servant in standing, tonight. In the near distance, a few blocks down the street, I saw the raindrops float towards the earth. I could not have seen them if not for the street lamp that illuminated my humility, my defeat, in its fullest.

A Museum For Memories

After having blogged for some 2 1/2 years with considerable success (in terms of viewers and comments), I finally reached a point where my blog was part of my life as it was. Just like I would wake up, brush, bather and head for college as though I was born to do those things, I would sit and write for an hour in the evening. And I wrote on whatsoever popped into my head, whether at tea-time when I drank my tea in complete silence while watching some kids play cricket in the nearby field, or be it when I picked my keyboard up from its place under the bed and onto my lap. Also, I don’t tend to write when there is a silence around me. It seems as though I’m sitting in an auditorium, surrounded by irritatingly curious people trying to see what I am doing. I like to be in the midst of a crowd of people, but each one minding his or her own business. That way, it feels like I am part of a bigger world around me, a world that has content waiting to be blogged(!), while at the same time a world which has been good enough to promise one of its dwellers the privacy to do his work. And so, I turn on some music (which is usually Danger – Keep Away by Slipknot). And ever since my laptop keyboard stopped functioning, I haven’t been able to write in the dark. I use this new plug-in pad to type, and as a compensation for the glaring light of the tubelights, the keys are nice and bouncy! So here we are: I write for an hour everyday in my own little customised environment. And in doing so, I’ve learnt more about writing and all its nuances. The little intricacies, the ways in which you can twist the whole thing without distorting its meanings, the ways in which you can use words to enforce a tiring session of reading-between-the-lines on the reader, and then have the whole passage smile innocently with a bit of subtle humour. But that’s only as far as writing goes. But what about the blog?

It becomes a close relative. I mean, c’mon, IT listens to everything I have to say, and I’ve used it more than once to wreak havoc in the minds of my friends 😛 (like some instrument of chaos!). Of late, however, my writer’s block reached a peak and became a period of its own. The look and feel of my blog weren’t somehow inspiring me enough, and looking back and through all my older posts, I felt as though I had exhausted all my topics and options of things to write about. If I looked for inspiration somewhere, it was though whatever I could have managed to come up with was already there. I even picked up a whole lot of books form the library in order to keep my own novel-in-the-making moving, but nope. Everywhere I went, through every page I crawled, there was only a wall in the end, and whatever I did to look for that special, secret brick in the wall, it was just another brick. Being the same as everyone else never felt so depressing. I did the same things everyday as everyone else, but when the time came in the evenings when I do nothing but sit and sate at my laptop screen, I was worse than everyone else. I was exhausted when I should have been gearing up for something bigger later on. I couldn’t plagiarise in peace! Every time I used some words of Churchill to keep me going, it felt as though Sir C was looking down at me from heaven or hell (where ever he is) and daring me to continue. I have never plagiarised before, but the intention to even begin anew has been defeated. So what did I do?

I deleted my blog on a whim! I don’t know which jackass does that, but by doing so, I felt fresh. Don’t ask me how. Maybe it’s the feeling you get when you have a break up, can’t get over your girlfriend, but see the difference when you burn her picture and flush it down the toilet. It was as though I was taking revenge on a biologically existent being capable of feelings. I have no idea as to how my blog must have felt, but being a page that received some 300 viewers daily, it should have felt pretty bad that it received only such an unceremoniously drab end after such a good run. A blog of 2 years and gone in a flash! Well, I can’t say I started writing furiously and passionately after that. Being WordPress, I couldn’t get the name of the blog back and I had to look for something else. Something that would be neutral enough entice me into forcing it to take sides in each one of my posts that would come up under it. And finally, after a lot of jumping around and Importing and Exporting, I landed on The MV Journal. M V are my initials. After all this, what’s the moral of the story?

Regardless of whatever I do, whatever I write, where ever I write it, the feelings I have towards my work seems to matter the most. I’ve always cherished writing, and not just as a form of art. I’ve used it with great effect to relieve the pent up energy I feel within me at times, I’ve used it with even greater effect to unblock my head of unwanted and walling thoughts. Once, when I had the writer’s block, I wrote about it and then tore down the wall. To a man who loves his work, it will never seem as though he is working to get what he wants. It will always seem as though it was something he was born to do, and that’s how I feel. I could keep writing forever, but if only for myself. In trying to place the blame of your block and of your monotonous rhetoric on the same topics over and over again on the look and feel of your creation, you are betraying the trust of the text on you. If only you can make the words feel like you do when you pen them down, then you will know that beyond merely being a form of communication, those patterns on the paper are your trails on the face of the world. Be it a blog for self-expression, be it a newspaper for information, be it a letter to a loved one for affection, all these things will let people know of hidden dramas, the tragedy and the comedy tucked away in their folds if only you choose to look for them. Your words are your brush strokes on the canvas of the world, to be hung one fine day in a museum built for memories.