29th November, 1936

Talk 288.

Explaining Maya ^[?] of Vedanta and swatantra ^[?] of Pratyabhijna ^[?] (independence of recognition), Sri Bhagavan said:

The Vedantins say that Maya is the sakti ^[?] of illusion premised in Siva.

Maya has no independent existence. Having brought out the illusion of the world as real, she continues to play upon the ignorance of the victims. When the reality of her not being is found, she disappears. `Recognition' says that Sakti ^[?] (power) is coeval with Siva. The one does not exist without the other. Siva is unmanifest, whereas Sakti is manifest on account of Her independent will swatantra. Her manifestation is the display of the cosmos on pure consciousness, like images in a mirror. The images cannot remain in the absence of a mirror.

So also the world cannot have an independent existence. Swatantra ^[?] becomes eventually an attribute of the Supreme. Sri Sankara says that the Absolute is without attributes and that Maya is not and has no real being. What is the difference between the two? Both agree that the display is not real. The images of the mirror cannot in any way be real. The world does not exist in reality (vastutah ^[?]). Both schools mean the same thing. Their ultimate aim is to realise the Absolute Consciousness. The unreality of the cosmos is implied in Recognition (Pratyabhijna), whereas it is explicit in Vedanta. If the world be taken as chit ^[?] (consciousness), it is always real. Vedanta says that there is no nana ^[?] (diversity), meaning that it is all the same Reality. There is agreement on all points except in words and the method of expression.

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