Living with Maya

I wrote a year or so back that as much I try to leave something, that something chases me back. Its clear that such chasing back is always with equal or greater force. Today, as I try to analyze and discuss it too, I realize it is all for good reason: Maya. We may have heard of some the species that are getting extinct and the fight for their preservation. The people who fight for it are a basis for those species to survive. Similarly, Prakriti needs a good basis to survive. Anything and everything that exists, exists in a balance. Any tangential behavior to the continuum poses a threat to Prakriti’s survival starting with disrupting the balance.

When a spiritual aspirant tries to dissociate the body consciousness, Prakriti causes many a changes to tie him up in the body. These changes mostly appear as laziness causing lethargy to act in the beginning, for example. Later on, when one rejoices the laziness, it makes a person to act by changing the circumstances drastically and suddenly. A person unprepared for changes in his slow moving life gets a shock and reacts accordingly. That’s a pull of consciousness into the body. Other times, a sickness that one does not bother for causes Prakriti to attack routine functioning of the body, at times vital too. Swami Vivekananda’s body was said to have met its mortal end through a vital bodily disorder. My understanding of the matter is that brahmacharis who are succeeding in ignoring the Mayic traps of lust and other attachments are bound to face similar attacks from Prakriti. If one succeeds in even ignoring these things, his progress drops down to a frustrating crawl or even to a feeling of time standing still! Having found patience to be the key, the sadhaka moves on. At which Prakriti poses various games in the mind since the weaker mind can definitely kill the spirit. These arise as fears, doubts, regrets, etc, in the waking hours or if not so, the attack continues in the dreams or sleep from which one finds himself woken up at odd hours of the night and such make-believe stories taking their hits on the mind in the waking state!

The struggle continues still.

sridharA neene kAyappA