The Srutis said:
14. Hail, Hail unto the Supreme Master unconquerable! Withdraw Thy Maya, constituted of the three gunas, from covering the knowledge of all Jiva, moving and unmoving, with the pall of ignorance. But in Thee, the controller of Maya, Maya is not the veil of ignorance as it is in the Jiva, but Thy inherent puissance and divine majesty. The Veda reveals Thee as sometimes manifesting Thy inherent power of Maya and at others as subsisting in Thyself, with all powers quiescent.
The Svetasvatara Upanisad gives an idea that Maya is a kind of net thrown on Being, making it look like the world fixed by some laws, constituting the structure of the net.
This idea makes it clear that Maya is not mere illusion. The object of any illusion, like that of dream, disappears later, whatever fright it may have created in the person experiencing it. The idea of the Brahman creating the world, which does not exist on its own, through His will, involves something like the idea of illusion. Salvation as the ultimate goal is freedom from determinateness whether it is the life of pain or pleasure, happiness or sorrow, good or bad, knowledge or ignorance. It is the same as freedom from Maya.
P. Sriramachandrudu explains succinctly that Maya is indescribable. It is neither existent, nor non-existent, nor both. It is not existent, for the Brahman alone is the existent (sat). It is not non-existent, for it is responsible for the appearance of the world. It cannot be both existent and non-existent as such a statement is self-contradictory. It is thus neither real, nor unreal; it is Mithya. But it is not a non-entity or a figment of imagination like the son of a barren woman. In the example of a rope mistaken for a snake, the rope is the ground on which the illusion of snake is super-imposed. When right knowledge dawns, the illusion disappears. The relation between the rope and the snake is neither that of identity nor of difference, nor of both. It is unique and known as non-difference (tadatmya). Similarly, the Brahman is the ground, the substratum on which the world appears through Its potency – Maya. When right knowledge dawns, the real nature of the world is realized as Maya disappears.
15. The whole universe of experience is ultimately Thyself alone. For, it is known to the Veda and the rishis that Thou alone remain when everything is dissolved to the subtlest state. Just as the appearance and disappearance of all effects like pots take place in their material substance clay, so do the appearance and dissolution of the universe take place in Thee, their material cause. But there is this difference that, unlike clay, Thy substance is not in the least affected by the creation of the universe out of, and its dissolution in, Thee. As everything that is conceived by thought and touched by the senses is only Thy manifestation and, therefore, Thyself the various deities and forms of worship described in the Veda really relate to Thee only, though indirectly. The steps we place on any object on the ground, though they appear to be placed on the object, are in the final sense placed on the earth only, as the earth supports all objects. So, too, do all the words and teachings of the Veda point towards Thee, though they may appear to deal with deities.
The world (cosmos) is the realm of cause and effect, and the realm of means and ends or of instruments and effects. This world is the world of process, action. The world of action is an empirical reality. It is also an empirical being. This does not mean that it is only a matter for experience. For instance, dreams are experienced. But they are not considered an empirical reality. An empirical reality is meant to be a realm of action, the result of past actions and impressions (samskaras), and is changeable through present actions, controlled by the laws of causes-and-effects and ends-and-means.
Logically and ontologically, the Brahman is prior to everything. IT is, therefore, the origin of everything. When the Brahman is considered the creator, the sustainer and the destroyer of the world, then IT must be the personal God. This interpretation does not conflict with the position that the Brahman is without qualities (nirguna). It only means that the Brahman is the ground of everything. This conforms to the concept of the four levels of being, each higher being, being the ground of the lower and ultimately the Brahman is the ground of all the lower levels and the world.
As IT is the ground or basis, the Brahman is called the cause (karana), in the ordinary sense of the term, of the world. Incidentally the Sanskrit word ‘karana’ also means ground, support and reason besides cause. It, therefore, follows that the Brahman is only the supporting being (ground) of the forms of the world. What constitutes the forms of the world is Prakrti (the unmanifest – Maya).
Anyway, the world of forms is an ordered whole in which the laws of space, time and causation hold true. But it is not a self-contained and self-consistent whole. The self-contradictory nature of the world in relation to space, time and causation establishes it. What lies beyond the world is no chaos, but being itself. The being of the world we experience is the Brahman – the Supreme Being. It is the nature of the Being to support the world in spite of its self-contradictions. The self-contradictory aspect always points to something that is at least relatively not self-contradictory. In spite of its self-contradictory nature, causality holds true in the world.
16. Oh Master of Prakrti! Knowing that all the divine manifestations and Incarnations are really Thyself, great sages have dived into the ocean of the world-sanctifying accounts of Thy sportive actions as such divine Incarnations and manifestations, and, through that, assuaged the heat of all their suffering. Oh Thou the Supreme One! It is then needless to say that those who overcome the limitations of space, time and mental modifications and intuit Thy Being will overcome all suffering, and be established in Thy state of Supreme Bliss.
Mythological epics refer to Divine Incarnations. They represent the actual descent of the Brahman in various mundane forms into the world. The Immanent dwells in all souls and accompanies them in life and death. It is the Brahman residing in the spirit (atman) of man like lightning in a cloud. The Incarnate as worshiped is the idol of God in various forms acceptable to devotees.
God’s play on earth as an Incarnation is the manifestation of the glory of the Chit-sakti, the Divine power. That which is the Brahman is also Rama, Krishna and Siva. The special manifestations of the Absolute are the Incarnations – the known and the knowable. God becomes the Incarnations in different ages to show us the way to become perfect.
The concept of Divine Incarnation is the first link in the chain of ideas leading to recognition of the oneness of God and man. God appearing first in one human form, then reappearing at different times in other human forms is at last recognized as being in every human form, or in all human beings.
