Maya

The illusion of the material world

The living entity's original constitutional position is pure spirit.
But a human being who identifies with the material body
may be said to be in maya. Maya means "not this."
In the twilight, a curled-up rope is sometimes mistaken for a snake.
The imagined snake is "not this" rope.
One thing is mistaken for another. Thus beguiled by maya,
the conditioned living entity considers the body to be the soul.
However, how can we mistake the rope for a snake unless
we know what a snake is? The conception of a snake is not
in itself untrue or unreal. The false identity is untrue or unreal.
Similarly, the material body is a product of maya,
the material energy of the Lord, and maya is dependent on Krishna,
like clouds produced by the sun. By the heat of the sun,
sea water is evaporated and transformed into clouds.
Just as a cloud is a transformation of the energy of the sun,
maya is a transformation of Krishna's spiritual energy.
Therefore it is real; it is not false, as is sometimes concluded
from the example of the snake and the rope.

The Material Connection

If you are thirty years old, thirty years ago your body did not exist,
and in another fifty years it will be gone. Similarly,
the material world is ever manifest and again annihilated,
just as waves in the sea rise and recede. Thus the material world
is a product of maya, just as the body is. When the material world manifests,
the living entities who do not wish to acknowledge the authority
of the Supreme Lord are given a chance in the material world
to pretend to be what they are not. To accommodate their
countless desires, maya manifests 8,400,000 species of life.
The living entity in the body of one of these species comes
under the control of maya because the body, being matter,
acts according to maya's laws. In the body of a dog,
one must act like a dog, and in the body of a demigod,
one acts like a demigod. The material word is a prison without bars,
and the inmates are confined by constantly diverting
their attention toward sense gratification. Thus their real knowledge
is forgotten and they are satisfied with any miserable situation.
The lower species, like the plants and animals, have consciousness
so dull that they cannot understand whether they are happy
or distressed. Hogs are satisfied eating stool, because
they take as enjoyment what would be suffering for us.

The Divine Connection

Everything takes place in the realm of maya
because of the combination of the body and the spirit soul.
This combination is made possible by the Supreme Lord Himself.
Krishna, the original father, injects all living entities
into the womb of maya by His mere glance. Just as the fragrance
of a flower placed before one's nose is touched by one's sense of smell,
yet the smelling and the flower are detached,
maya can do nothing without Krishna, yet He has nothing
to do with the material world directly -- He is always in His supreme abode.
He is all-pervading by His energy. The energy of Krishna is one,
but it works in diverse ways, like electrical energy,
which can be used to refrigerate or heat. So for our understanding,
we divide Krishna's energy three ways -- into the spiritual,
the material, and the marginal. Maya, the material energy,
is an expansion of Krishna's spiritual energy, and the living entity
is the marginal energy because the living entity must
take shelter in either the spiritual or the material energy.

Liberation

In the material struggle for existence we are defeated,
for there is no possibility of overcoming the miserable
conditions of old age, disease, and death. But the spirit soul
does not need to enter temporary bodies. The soul does so
only due to ignorance or forgetfulness of Krishna.
Therefore in the human form of life, our intelligence is developed,
so we should change our consciousnessby trying to understand Krishna.
Then we can be liberated from maya.