LIFE is illusion (Maya) - What kind of illusion ?

In Hindu spiritual tradition,

the life, as we live it, is considered as Maya(Illusion).

Here, the word ‘Maya’ is translated as illusion.

The word Illusion could mean imagination, delusion etc.

But,

We know life is REAL, not imagination or delusion because the reality is felt not only by one self but also shared by others.

So, life must be real.

Then,

In what way it can be seen as an illusion?

Here,

We have to distinguish between REALITY and ACTUALITY.

For example,

While we are watching a movie, we may go through spectrum of emotions.

All emotions are real because our psychology and physiology changes.

Actors too go through these changes, which are real.

All emotions are REAL but not ACTUAL.

Because,

Nothing is ACTUALLY happening out there to cause these emotions.

Likewise, life can also be a REALITY but not an ACTUALITY.

To understand this, we will have to see how we engage ourselves in the world.

Our engagement with the world is through the “I” persona, the ego.

Ego is our identity and is also our persona.

Now,

If we look at the contents of the ego, we can see, it is all conditions.

These conditions depend on one’s place and background.

 And they are imposed by or derived from the family, tradition, race, religion, culture and so on.

Since childhood, these conditions mold our personality and fix our values, opinions, prejudices, aspirations, ambitions etc.

Now,

When we perceive and engage with the world through this already conditioned entity ego.

What we perceive can only be a conditioned reality, not actuality 

– this is called as ‘Maya’ (illusion).

‘Maya’ is an illusion of conditioned reality.

Let us take a simple situation,

How a lush grassland overlooking a lake would be perceived by different people?.

A painter/poet would see its beauty.

A builder would see it as an ideal place to build lake view apartments.

For a casual passerby, it may merge with the background without revealing anything.

The realities revealed here are according to the conditionings of a particular ego, which perceives.

It is true for all our engagements.

And, it is true for our relationships as well.

Because,

Our relationship with others is also shaped by these conditionings.

Basically,

Our perceptions of people are through societal images like

‘Colleague’, ‘Teacher’, ‘Hindu’, ‘Husband’ and so on.

Actual persons beyond those images are not perceived.

For example,

‘Wife’ is perceived only as a wife with all the imports.

The point is,

The ‘Woman’ behind ‘wife’ is not perceived.

There is an anecdote related to this –

A person, who lost his wife, asked a mystic

“Can you help me to meet my wife?”

“Yes, I can, which one you want to meet -

The good one, who gave you comfort and care or

The other, who fought with you and you despised”

“I want to meet the good one”

“Isn't your life pathetic? 
You lived with a person for more than 20 years and you never met the person wholly”.

On hearing this, the man breaks down.

Here, societal images were in relationship and not persons.

Though ‘wife perception’ is a societal necessity and reality, the ’woman behind wife’ is the actuality.

And, wholeness of perception should include the ‘woman behind wife’.

Now, if we extrapolate,

We arrive at a world, where images are in relationships, not the authentic people.

This is grand ‘Maya’ - illusory world and an illusory life within it.

In this world,

We can only see and experience what our ego ‘want’ us to see and experience, anything beyond is inaccessible and considered superfluous too.

The adage

“What is happening to you is what you think is happening to you” can be understood here.

It is like,

actors play their roles in the stage scripted by an author.

In life, people play their roles scripted by their ego.

So,

Life is not unreal; it is real but a conditioned reality (Maya).

If conditioning changes, our experience too will change.

Looking at the entity ego,

We are not born with it but we are born with selfness.

Ego is only an acquired sheath of psychological knowledge over the self.

So, the self can co-exist with ego and can also remain independent of it.

Ego may have its own place, as a tool for orientation, survival, expression and so on.

But it is not the self and not the foundation of the self either.

Then, it seems,

Only by de-conditioning the mind or transcending the egoistic perception,

one can perceive the actuality – the world and life that exist independent of human thought.

Till such time,