The Secret Doctrine of Goddess Lalita
(Sri LalitaAṣṭottara Rahasyārthamu)
10. mahāmāyā
She who is the Great Illusion
If these upādhi-s are non-existing, why do we continue to see them? If a thing is non-existing, like the horn of a rabbit or the son of a barren women, it should not be appearing to us. The nāma mahāmāyā answers this question. Devī is the great illusion. She is the mahāmāyā. She is both the power and the wielder of the power. As śakti, She is the great illusory power called māyā. As śiva, She is the Consciousness that wields the power. māyā measures the Infinite and makes it appear as though finite. Time, space, and objects are the manifestations of māyā.
If Consciousness alone is Real and everything else is false, what are time and space? How do they measure or limit the Infinite? Are they like the water in a mirage, mere appearances? According to Shiva Advaita, śiva molded Himself into time, space, and the world we perceive. He is like the magician who performs his magic all by himself. Sometimes the magician appears to sit with us, sometimes he appears to run away from us, sometimes he appears to crawl up a rope, sometimes he appears to fall flat and die, and sometimes he suddenly he gets up and smiles at us. He appears to be performing to a script, playing multiple roles and manifesting multiple objects simultaneously. Mesmerized by his performance, we watch in wonder without blinking our eyes.
The example of a magician may be hard for us to relate to if we have never witnessed such a performance. The example of a dream may better illustrate the point. Dream experience is common to all of us. In a dream, we find ourselves in different situations and transacting with different objects. Where did all these dream objects and situations appear from? They all appeared from our Consciousness. Consciousness, as it were, differentiated Itself and appeared in all these forms. On waking up, when we realize it was all a dream, we are amazed at how real the dream objects appeared in the dream. This is the māyā we experience in our daily lives – perceiving an illusion and thinking it is real.
When we cannot fathom the māyā that we experience in our individual lives, how can we fathom mahāmāyā, the great illusion, that is operating at the cosmic level? mahāmāyā transcends worldly māyā-s. A magician in the world, with his limited power, can perform a few magic tricks with a sleight of hand or through hypnosis. He may also use some tools to perform his tricks, even though the tools may not be visible to us. However, Devī , the Supreme Power, does not need any tools. Since She is formless, there is no scope for any ‘sleight of hand.’ Since the performance and the spectators watching the performance are not different from Her, there is no need for hypnotism. Without any tools and without any deception, śakti molds Herself into all these forms, sees Herself in all the forms, and transacts with Herself. The great illusion is that we perceive transient names and forms as though they are real, and overlook the only real substance that IS. We don’t doubt our experience. It is like saying we see a black sky or that the sky is black. From the perspective of the individual, who sees the unreal as though it is real (ex: seeing black in the formless empty space we call sky) is ignorance. From the perspective of māyā śakti, the unreal appearing as though it is real is a projection or an appearance.