What Maya is and what it isn’t, The Monk’s Podcast 138 with Gopal Hari Prabhu

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Gopal Hariprabhu welcome back to the monk’s podcast Hare Krishna Prabhu my obeisances all glories to Shri Rampal Maharaj in our last podcast on the problem of evil actually that was probably one of the most you could say intellectually stimulating podcast we have ever had and several devotees told me that they liked it but they had to hear it two three times to understand it we did go into a little bit intricacies of various arguments used by different traditions and what our tradition has to say so I thought we could discuss on the on the recent book that you have published the Maya in the Bhagavad Purana you have a copy of that book you can show it also we’ll give a link afterwards before we here this is the Indian edition the paperback edition that’s been printed okay and I also have the the hardbound edition oh okay so that’s wonderful so congratulations it’s quite a directly what do you say a directly you could say scriptural topic which which you have presented and I read the book recently I felt that there is a there is a you have been able to present the Gaudiya traditions understanding without having to do in a in a very contemporary in that so maybe you could start with how did it was this your PhD thesis topic or how did you choose this particular topic to write a book about yes so initially when I began my studies at Oxford University I wanted to do something related with science you know it was something that you know I was interested in relating you know Vaishnav theology with science relating science and and religion and I started to read about books on science and religion and there’s a few you know very famous authors in this field one of them is John Pockinghorn there’s John Hadley Broke John Pockinghorn Arthur Peacock Ian Barber these were the big names at that time but the founder of this field of science and religion in Cambridge and Oxford was John Pockinghorn and he has this book Science and Ecumenical Discourse something like this I’m forgetting the exact name of the book and in that it’s one of his few books where he talks about science and other world religions other than Christianity so most of these scholars that are very famous they do science and Christianity and they generally come from a Christian background or most likely practicing Christians and so they were just starting to explore well what would it look like if we did science and other world religions and so he has a chapter on Buddhism he has a chapter on Judaism not really even chapters just a few pages and his section on science and Hinduism was also there and I read that section and in that he wrote that I think that any discourse between science and religion between science and Hinduism must begin with the conception of Maya because from my you know just brief studies of Hinduism he said it appears to me that Maya in Hinduism is the world and you know Maya is how they describe the world identify the world and science is a field of study that’s interested in examining the world so it studies the world so if we’re going to do a discussion or relationship between science and Hinduism we first of all need to know what do Hindus conceive of in terms of their world what is the world for them if you’re going to you know relate two things you need to first identify what those two things are and so science and Maya need to be studied so I became a little enthusiastic by this I said okay the expert in the field is saying this is what the need is this is as we say the lacuna in scholarship the gap in scholarship so let me work on that so then I started you know working on science and Maya but then I myself I started to realize that I don’t have a clear understanding of what Maya is nor is the understanding of Maya presented in our tradition clearly in contemporary times so then rather than doing the whole thing I said before we do that I just have to focus on Maya what is Maya and so therefore my book this is how it came about my book is on Maya in the Bhagavad Purana. Okay so that’s why as from what I had interacted with you or I heard about you you were originally planning to do your thesis in science and religion and then you shifted to a more I thought of the more theological topics so it is not actually a shift it was it as you could say a more strategic repositioning so that you could actually serve a need in that that area itself. Yes and also in the in the course of it my interest in in religion and theology increased so so now I am doing you know just religious studies also and ethics and you know in addition to science and religion initially I did my master’s in science and religion so I did do a MST in science and religion but then when I came to write my PhD I realized that in terms of scholarship contemporary scholarship we are sort of in in in the realm of not we exactly but Hinduism is so far behind that even before we do science and religion we first need to academically present what the religion is and it was that recognition or realization that led me to okay first I need to write a book on Maya people are misunderstanding what Maya is every the whole world thinks you know Maya is something else when in fact this is not what Maya is so first of all I need to present what Maya is I try to dispel the misconceptions and then once people have a clear understanding of what Maya is we can look at other scholars they can work on you know science and Maya that’s true yeah you know recently I used to develop this topic of Maya recently I was reading a book on say history of Indian philosophy so it came I read a very striking point that there are two kinds of philosophers this is one is that they accept the everyday reality that we experience our everyday experience as real and then they try to get a deeper experience deeper understanding of our everyday experience that is one approach to philosophy and that is more or less in the Western tradition embodied by Aristotle and where the another approach is that they overturn everyday experience and they say actually our everyday experience is a deception and actually there is a deeper reality which is obscure there is a actual reality which is quite different radically different from everyday experience and it is that so in one sense everyday experience is rejected in the pursuit of what is considered reality and that approach is more of Plato and Socrates who are looking for the essences of things the Aristotle pioneered more of the empirical method which laid the foundation for modern science so I mean I would like to comment on this this these two approaches but in general it does seem that even in tradition that may not be immediately not he stick even there the understanding that there is some kind of distance and difference between reality and our day everyday experience that seems to be a almost like a universal idea across a history and geography yes I fully agree and and you know another example in Western philosophy is Immanuel Kant where Immanuel Kant believed that the world that we see is the world of phenomena but actual reality is the noumena now because he was a philosopher and not a theologian he believed we could not know the noumena the noumena is out of reach we cannot know what the reality is behind the phenomena but we in theology we are determined to know that noumena we are determined to know what the essence or the reality is behind the phenomena and very much also like you have mentioned Plato and you know and the cave Plato and the shadow world his idea of reality and the shadow world perfect beauty and its reflection and these are some of the things actually I talk about in my book that this is this whole discussion is the discussion of maya that maya itself is not just illusion the world is not illusion for the you know the Indian sages but in fact the world is a reflection the world is a you know a shadow world in relation to reality it’s a reflection of the real world and in fact this is something I don’t mention in my book there is you know ample evidence that the reason why Plato and Socrates were saying what they’re saying and like you’re saying they were not accepting the empirical method is because they were in touch or in communication with Indian sages and there’s actually archaeological historical evidence for this Edwin Bryant in his book you know in his introduction to his 10th book translation of the book talks about this that how there are columns in Greece where there are inscriptions of Hindu gods you know inscription of the word Krishna actually and in India you have you know columns and and you know temples where there’s inscriptions of Greek gods so there was communication between them and Plato was getting many of these ideas of the reflection you know the world as a reflection the same metaphor that’s used in the Vedas he was getting these ideas from Vedic scriptures another evidence for this is also linguistic in his book the Republic he talks about how the soul the soul is is a swamp he describes it as a swamp yes okay and you know linguists they say that there’s just no way that there’s just such a happy coincidence that he’s talking about the soul as a swamp and in Sanskrit texts they talk about the soul as a Hansa and a great soul as a param Hansa and so there has to be some communication between these two cultures and therefore these cultures were talking amongst themselves and these very esoteric ideas of the world as a reflection and how this world is phenomena but behind it there’s a real world there’s we should not take our perception our empirical knowledge through our observation so seriously this these ideas they are coming from eastern origins and or the main point is not who was first the main point is that this is the same discussion that’s being discussed in different parts of the world in approximately the same time period yeah it’s true and you to some extent even within science now as science is advanced actually even science is saying that the world of sensory experience is not the actual world to some extent because quantum physics and relativity especially quantum physics the postulates of the quantum physics they make no sense in terms of our sensory experience so it seems that in whichever field of knowledge we go deeper this distance between our everyday experience and any you could say model or conception of reality at a deeper level that difference we seem to humanity seems to crop up it seems to pop up everywhere I fully agree and you know most of the time people point to quantum physics and certain you know these things but I mean even more basic than that most scientists today accept the fact they recognize the fact that science is pointing to a reality or to some reality that is beyond space and time because Einstein’s theory of relativity which has been proved over and over again I mean that’s sort of just common accepted science that space and time are relative one of the things that Einstein showed is that space and time are elements in this universe the universe does not exist in space and time but rather space and time are elements in the universe now if space and time are elements in the universe then what is the universe what is the universe itself it must be something that’s beyond space and time and so so you know and also is antimatter dark matter so in so much phenomena it’s not just quantum physics quantum physics is one powerful example of it like you mentioned but so much phenomena is showing that there is something beyond space and time now all the tools of science are there to study space and time the only tools and methods that they have is to study the world of space and time now they want to study something beyond space and time so how do they do that it’s very frustrating you know how do you do that well this is a question that science is asking now but religion and philosophy have been asking this question since a thousand years what’s beyond space and time so if someone has been asking a question for over a thousand years and someone is just starting to ask a question then who is more likely to know the answer or who is more likely to have more insight into it so I mean this is at least it’s now obvious that science and religion are both asking the same question the answers might be different but they’re asking the same question and they’re asking a question that religion has been asking since thousands of years and so there’s no choice but to turn towards spirituality or religion to try to find answers to this that’s beautiful I think there are many scientists who are also trying to write books which address philosophical questions now how well they do that because of the prestige that they have in science sometimes their books might get more mileage and credibility than what actually they would get if they were subjected to serious philosophical or logical scrutiny but it does seem I like this point that both of them are moving towards the same questions so it seems that is to elaborate this point within science there is one approach which is more technologic centered how can we do things faster better easier but there is also a trend which is looking for a deeper understanding of reality and it seems that to some extent those efforts are not being very successful that’s why there are books like the end of physics from certainty to uncertainty and there are there are a lot of you could say epistemological challenges that science is coming up when it starts addressing fundamental questions about the nature of reality itself yes and there is an argument to be made that science has advanced so much that it has actually found its own limits and like you’re pointing out technologically speaking you can keep making bigger and bigger machines but in terms of true science science has advanced enough that it has found its own limits now the boundary is space and time so if you want to move anything beyond it you have to move beyond space and time and somewhere i read i don’t know where you know you read so many things and you forget where it is that somewhere i read that some very cutting edge new scientists they are looking into yoga and meditation as kind of technologies or ways to bend you know the space time limit and move beyond space and time yeah so so science has found its own limits it’s it’s given up it’s like okay this is this is it now now of course we can travel farther in space but science knows that there’s a hundred billion galaxies each containing a hundred billion stars and the universe is almost unlimited if not unlimited and this is just an approximation as far as they know there could be a hundred and one billion stars each containing a hundred and two billion galaxies so they put out a number there but they know that okay we can travel farther but i mean there’s no end to the universe we can we can keep traveling farther so so conceptually speaking they seem to have found their limits that’s so true so is there i i took quantum physics as a specific example because the challenges there are very widely known and acknowledged although of course they are sometimes used to justify any kind of new age beliefs the uncertainty of the quantum physics sometimes is used as a license but in general has science come up with anything like maya that there is some epistemological barrier that may prevent us from knowing the nature of reality i know there’s the evolution that newton’s time the idea was of a clockwork universe but i think at the start of the 20th century and middle is some prominent scientist said that the universe resembles more a mind than a mechanism or a machine and then the idea was that the mind is far more complex to understand so is there anything similar that to your knowledge science has come up with the idea of there might be some yes science won’t acknowledge the presence of conscious agencies but any force that might actually limit a human cognition or even cognitive ability um i think there’s a recognition that um i think that our perceptions and observations are limited and so therefore there’s sort of a veil um a a limit to uh to our knowledge there’s a limit to observation or our perceptive knowledge and i think a place where this really shows up is the idea of multiple dimensions so in mathematics even a you know a high school student they solve calculus um equations you know they solve math problems in the sixth or seventh dimension so in order to solve a problem in the first dimension you you you know you know it’s x to the six you solve it in the sixth dimension you bring it back so mathematically speaking nature and the world can be modeled into many many dimensions but we as human beings cannot make sense of more than three dimensions we can we can write it down on a piece of paper but there’s no way intellectually we can make sense of what it would be to have a six-dimensional world so there’s a recognition there that science needs to recognize thoughtful scientists that there is realities beyond our perception and our perception like you mentioned are you know the observer themselves are limited and people who observe science they may not be scientists themselves they recognize this like for example Schopenhauer a very more contemporary western philosopher he talks about the veil of Maya he’s very you know he’s really enthusiastic about this veil because you know he does believe that there’s a certain veil a certain limit you could call it the speed of light but there’s certain natural elements that limit our understanding of the world because we are in a veil is this yes so there are some physicists who have said that the universe is not only clearer than we suppose or clearer than we can then we imagine it is clearer than what we can imagine now it’s attributed to J.P.S. Haldane and many others so it does seem that so maybe not the concept of Maya but the idea that we are limited in our capacity to know that is something which is which is being you could say not what to say it’s almost like a grudging acknowledgement which is coming up to some extent now turning to Maya generally what when I read your book what struck me is that usually we talk about Maya as a force that tempts and deludes us and it’s more in terms of say the will power or the discipline or the purity to resist it so as practitioners that’s the that’s the concept of Maya we primarily operate with but it’s not just in terms of say actions but Maya are not actions you could say Maya as a philosophical concept is not something which we explore so much it’s more as a Maya as an agency that will delude us and we have to be afraid we need to be cautious about it if not afraid but the idea of Maya as a philosophical concept that can be analyzed and understood that was I think quite a striking feature I found in your book so have you also noticed this difference in the nature of the discourse when it is happening say within the tradition and within within more philosophical circles yes Prabhu actually the in the Mayavad traditions that’s why they are called Mayavad they do so much with Maya because you know it’s the cornerstone of their philosophy the world is Maya and therefore you know everything is Mithya in the Mayavad in the Advaita traditions there are books and books written on Maya because it’s the cornerstone of their philosophy of their discussion but however in in our Vaishnav tradition there is much discussion about Maya but it appears or Maya functions in different ways as I mentioned in my book Maya relates to the human condition the one that you’re speaking of which is the most common way of understanding Maya how Maya affects us Maya is also described in relation to the world the natural world which is the aspect that John Pockinghorn was interested in Maya is nature Maya is the world and Maya is also spoken up in relation to Krishna’s pastimes and in terms of spiritual reality that is Yoga Maya also in terms of creation creative power and so in my own studies I began to see that Maya is described sometimes as in one place she says Maya actually doesn’t exist it’s just a figment of the mind it’s just a misconception in another place it says Maya is Krishna’s energy in another place he says how Maya affects all living beings so all of these different statements were there and you know just seeing you know just a cursory look at them makes it appear oh you know these are contradictory or these don’t make sense or what is it in one place Prabhupada is saying Maya is Krishna’s energy in another place he’s saying Maya is just a misconception it’s just seeing the world incorrectly so how to bring these understandings of Maya together because all the statements should be true I mean I started sort of with that approach that all the statements are meaningful and Prabhupada is saying something in different places same thing in terms of the general Vedic body of knowledge more you could say in terms of Puranas specifically Srimad Bhagavatam and the Upanishads and things you find the same word translated and used in so many different ways and how to make sense of them is it just random that someone uses Maya like this or like this and Shankaracharya interpretation of Maya which is a whole different thing so how does our understanding of Maya how does the Bhagavatam understanding of Maya particularly how does that relate with all of these different conceptions of Maya and how do the different conceptions within the Bhagavatam relate with each other that’s something that was my first question to begin with how do we make sense of this and then I started to realize there’s a whole tradition behind this word all the way from the Vedas to the Upanishads you know Mahabharat and the Ramayana the Srimad Bhagavatam they all are using Maya and how in general are they using it what are the different ways in which they’re using it and then how does Shankaracharya interpret it is it same is it different and so in order to do this I actually went through every single instance of Maya in the Srimad Bhagavatam it’s at the end of the book there’s a table of over 500 places where it’s used and seeing how is that word used what is the context of the word Maya and then recognizing or realizing that you know there’s you know Maya is a very clear there’s a very clear concept of Maya and it has a very clear meaning in these texts and it’s used in different ways.
Oh okay so you’re saying that even within the same text the term might be used with the different meanings at different times. Yes. Okay.
That’s so true. In fact yeah go ahead. So to then to sort of answer that point that then well what is it what this book shows is that the way Maya is used all the way from the Vedas to the Puranas Mahabharata Ramayana Bhagavatam is fundamentally as a creative power.
Most fundamentally Maya is as real as it gets Maya is a creative energy it is a creative power and from specifically we see even in the Sri Tashwaropanishad in the Mahabharata Ramayana most fundamentally this power is the divine power of God it’s a divine power of Krishna it’s the power through which God creates the world. Now that power then affects us or affects things in different ways so that one creative power becomes a creative energy that creates the world it’s also the power that we harness or we come in contact with as individual beings and it deludes us or you know or it is used for magical things that people want to do they use Maya to affect others or that creative power is used by Krishna as his own internal potency that same energy his internal potency is used by Krishna for his divine pastimes and therefore it’s very interesting that in the introduction to the 10th Kanto, Srila Prabhupada actually points this out he says that Maya is one we then you know often times we think of Maya as Maha Maya Yoga Maya but he says fundamentally Maya is one Maya is the creative power energy of Krishna now it can act in a delusive way and in that way it’s just a misconception it can act in a way of creative power it can create the world or it can act as Yoga Maya for Krishna Srila but Maya itself is fundamentally one okay so so what you’re saying here is that the the once we get into the philosophical analysis or philosophical understanding of how Maya is explained then we can reconcile the multiple senses in which the word Maya is used in the scriptures as well as in the sense in which we might be using it as a yes absolutely then once we understand that that Maya does not mean illusion most fundamentally Maya can be elusive but Maya means creative energy then we can understand the way it’s used and etymologically this has also been shown by contemporary philosophers so Shankaracharya always talks about Maya as as from the or you I would say Advaitic philosophers as coming from the root Ma which means to measure like Ma means to measure and so Maya is the attempt of measuring the immeasurable Brahman Brahman is immeasurable it is unlimited it is you know unknowable and when we try to measure it we quantify it that is Maya and that is illusion now Sheila Prabhupada also talks about Maya in terms of Ma and measure right he so that is definitely that is one of the interpretations or ways to understand Maya it’s not incorrect it is correct to to see it as to measure something that measures the immeasurable however there’s another meaning to Maya actually a more fundamental meaning it’s an older meaning etymologically speaking where Maya comes from the root Ma which means mother right in every language the word Ma means mother so you know there must be some truth to it every language it’s interesting this is one of the words that no matter what you speak in Spanish or English or Greek or Hindi or Telugu Ma means mother so the root Ma means mother and specifically to create like a mother would create so Ma means creative power in this way means to create the creative power it’s the creative power of God Ma is the original mother and therefore in Sankhya philosophy Maya like in Vaishna philosophy because Bhagavatam also incorporates Sankhya Maya is not seen as a negative force as it is seen in Advaita it’s not seen as a trap or trap as mother in Sankhya Maya is seen as mother where she entangles us but her purpose of entangling us is actually to bring us back it’s actually to teach us like a mother teaches her child she punishes the child for some time but then through that makes a more beautiful better child so Srimad Bhagavatam is actually taking the Sankhya meaning of Maya Maya as mother and therefore there’s sections in the Bhagavatam where there’s prayers to Maya there’s one one specific section where there’s a prayer to Maya where the devotee is praying to Maya that oh mother please remove your deluding energy so that I can come closer to the Lord so Maya yeah Maya is fundamentally Maya is a good force it’s a positive it is the energy of God so this turns the tables around where in Advaita philosophy and common perception Maya is seen as a negative thing I’m trying to show that no in the Srimad Bhagavatam and in our Vaishya tradition well Maya is teaching us through hard knocks fundamentally Maya is a good force because it comes from the ultimate good it comes from God it is a positive energy true now I was reading the Bhagavatam a few years ago I don’t remember the exact verse now but I came across this the word is Vaishnavi Janamohini that is the description for Maya this is a Vaishnavi she’s a devotee but she’s Janamohini that’s her service so what you’re saying is actually I don’t remember Durga is called as a mother but Maya itself being called herself being called as a mother is remarkable well in the 10th Kanta when when Krishna Lord Vishnu tells Subhadra to go to to go to Devaki no sorry I’m getting confused Krishna tells Yogamaya to actually transfer Balram from the womb of Devaki to Devaki to Rohini that time yes but then the other way around also where then Yashoda’s daughter sorry yeah Yashoda’s daughter who is fundamentally Krishna’s sister right she is then taken by Vasudev to Devaki so that point you know this is difficult for her because she’s being separated from Krishna so Krishna tells her that you go there and if you do this service for me if you if you go back to Devaki then you will be worshipped in Kalyug by everyone and therefore now we see so many Durga temples and and she’s being worshipped and then he says you will have many names and one of those names is Maya another is Yoga Maya so Maya is Krishna’s sister right she’s Yashoda’s daughter and then and then she goes to Devaki and then Kansa takes her and he tries to throw her on the ground and then she goes up and becomes Durga so to Kansa she appears as Durga because he’s a demon but to the devotees mother Yashoda and all these things she’s actually Krishna’s sister she’s even more than Durga she’s an expansion of Subhadra okay you know that means you could say there are three different levels I mean there could be many and there is say there is one level where is you could say the psychological level at which Maya affects us then there is also an ontological level where what Maya actually is and I don’t know whether the word transcendental would be appropriate where how Maya relates with Krishna in her pastimes so there could be multiple levels of understanding of Maya also yes yes so there’s Maya as the world that’s the Maya as the energy that creates this world there’s Maya as a human condition so Maya that affects us and Maya as the divine condition so this word I use a divine condition there’s no conditioning but it’s a divine condition meaning that in this the devotees of the Lord like Narada Muni they are praying in the Bhagavatam to the Lord that please let me come under the spell of Maya your yoga Maya so that I can be part of the divine condition which is a condition of forgetting the power and greatness of the Lord and participating in His Leela so Maya also in this way bewilders the soul but bewilders them in a good way so so in this world she’s bewildering so that we learn some lessons and we come back to Krishna she’s bewildering in the sense of punishing us but in the spiritual world she’s bewildering because the devotee wants to forget Krishna’s potency, his power and voluntarily the devotees accepting that forgetfulness for the service of Krishna to love Krishna spontaneously. So just before we go a little bit more into the specifics about discussing Maya would you like to say contrast something between say the concept of the force of delusion in other religions also before we going to say there is the concept of Satan or Shaitan which is there in Christianity and Islam.
So there it seems that their idea is that there was a angel who rebelled against most powerful angel of God who rebelled against God and then that’s how he became the devil. So it does seem that while Christianity rejects that what is the Manichean tradition which says there is good and evil which are always in evil in combat but still there is the idea that the devil is opposed to God. So the idea of Maya as Maya as a devotee of God and the devil as a as you could say a fallen devotee or a fallen angel or I could say anti-angel they are categorically there is a significant difference isn’t it? Yes and see this is something that I am very enthusiastic about is that Maya is not something separate from the Lord like a Satan like a you know an evil figure in other traditions.
Why? Because Maya is the energy of God it is mother and it is meant to fundamentally liberate the soul it is meant to help the soul. Now the part that is very interesting is that the idea of Satan in Christian traditions is similar to the concept of Maya to the conception of Maya in Shankaracharya’s thought. In some ways and I explain why because yes because see for Shankaracharya Maya is fundamentally something that is bad because Maya of course he says it doesn’t exist and you know Christian thinkers would say that it does exist but in terms of the effect that it has on us in terms of you know they’re not so much ontologically speaking but in terms of the way they are described and their functions.
Maya is not Brahman in Shankaracharya’s thought. Maya is therefore he says Maya itself is non-existent. The world itself therefore is unreal.
We say no the world is real Maya is real it is a fundamental power it is real and it just it acts in an elusive way it is not unreal but Shankaracharya is saying no you know for all practical purposes Maya is unreal it is non-existent the world is also unreal and therefore since Brahman is real Maya is unreal and you know therefore our Vaishnavacharya has actually accused Shankara of being the dualist. He’s actually teaching dualism and we’re teaching monism but he’s saying there’s two things there’s Maya and Brahman now he says Maya is neither real nor is it unreal it is but whatever it is it is separate than Brahman it is something that is in competition or you could say identity than Brahman we are in Maya right now that is the fundamental human problem we are not in Brahman in Christianity they’re saying the same thing that Satan is fundamentally in competition with God and therefore something bad and you know God has somehow going to destroy this angel or has destroyed this angel but we have come under the forces of Satan This is striking so in terms of ontology the conception of in the nature of reality the conception of Maya and the conception of Satan may be very different but in terms of you could say what you said the human condition in terms of how they affect us and how they relate with God there is a there is a remarkable level of similarity in terms of the operational aspect you could say yes yes this is the kind of the you know in my book I talk about Shankaracharya’s you know conception of Maya this is a major weakness that you know just you know very unbiased scholars have found in Shankaracharya’s thought in terms specifically in terms of his conception of Maya see so in the Vedic scriptures you know before like the Rig Veda and I’m specifically speaking of the Vedas and Upanishads Maya is seen as creative power something real and energy that comes from God now what Shankaracharya does is he says that that same this that one word you know he changes the meaning of the word and he says from being real it’s unreal right he changes the meaning of the word Maya from being creative power it’s now something you know that is fundamentally you know unreal so when he does that then wherever in the text it says that wherever it says that you know Bhagavan creates this world through his Maya or he appears in this world through his Maya like in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that I appear in this world through this Maya then immediately he says ah see it’s coming through Maya therefore it is Maya and Krishna’s form in this world is Maya so all he had to do was just tweak or you could say adjust the meaning of the word Maya he didn’t have to change the meaning he didn’t have to reject the shlokas shlokas were the same Vedas are the same just change the meaning of the word Maya and now all of a sudden everything that is produced from Maya becomes illusion and unreality and my argument is that this meaning of Maya this conception of Maya as something that is separate from God something that is unreal is Shankaracharya’s own contribution to the history of Indian philosophy it’s his unique it’s his own contribution it’s his own philosophy for which he should get credit for he should be recognized for but we cannot say that that is the philosophy of the Upanishads because the simple fact is that Maya is used about 14 times in the Upanishads and it’s never used in the context of unreality you know generally we think oh Maya is really an Upanishadic concept it’s hardly an Upanishadic concept you find Maya in the Vedas you find an explosion of the use of the terms in the Puranas but as far as the Upanishads themselves they hardly use Maya 14 times and about three or four times they use it as magic it’s some description of the magic of Indra or the Devas that’s there in the Upanishads or the Upanishad Maya is used as the energy of Rudra you know as the creative power of Rudra in the Svitashra Upanishad so where does this idea of Maya’s illusion come from? It comes from Shankara himself saying it’s his own contribution is a very respectable way of saying that it is not based on scripture respectful way of saying it yes and that’s important that it’s not based upon scripture yes okay and a part of the problem is in the word illusion because the English word illusion can be very misleading and this is something also that I recognize it’s not just the Sanskrit words that cause us confusion but it’s also the English words that we use so illusion in one context can be translated as unreality and an illusion in another context can be translated as mistaking one thing for another right that which is not mistaking the rope to be a snake you know like that so when Srila Prabhupada is using the word illusion he’s using it in this sense confusing things seeing one thing to be another when Shankaracharya is using the word or you know Advaitins are using the word illusion they’re using it in a sense of unreality so Shankaracharya says that you know Maya neither exists nor does it not exist and Ishwara the Lord is Brahman appearing in the world of Maya so so essentially Ishwara is is you know Brahman seen through Maya now one of the you could say contradictions or problems in Shankara’s own thought is that at times he says that Ishwara is Brahman he does not say that Ishwara is completely Maya because he doesn’t want to give Ishwara that position but on the other hand he says that Ishwara is Brahman seen through Maya so even Advaitins themselves have seen this is a contradiction and western scholars you could say contemporary scholars have noted that to some degree Shankara’s conception of Maya is incoherent because he says two different things different places and philosophically speaking sort of in terms of internal consistency you know what is Ishwara is God Maya or is he not and Shankara is not willing to say that he is Maya and only Brahman is reality and he’s also not willing to say that Ishwara is Brahman which means that now he has yet a third category he has Brahman he has Ishwara and he has Maya okay so now in terms of world religions that you were saying so this now you know in all of these differences the difference between the Bhagavata conception and the other world religions is that they are seeing things that are in some Christian traditions they are seeing Satan and evil as separate from God and therefore there are things that coexist with God or that are in competition with God but the Bhagavata is actually saying that unity in difference so you know oneness in difference that you know there is just one fundamental reality and Maya is the energy of God a lot of concepts you brought in over here and in one sense you could say that when we discuss when we discuss in our normal study and we contemplate there is a lot that is you could say implicit or inchoate but when we explicitly explicate it analyze it that’s when the differences become very striking and one place I read about in the same recent book on philosophy philosophy is in one sense the art of categorization that categorizing what is what so to the extent we categorize carefully to the extent actually we are doing philosophy but just to retrace your thought or rearticulate it to see if I got it clearly so what you’re saying is that whereas the Vedic texts in general talk about Maya as a creative energy but just by changing that in the etymological semantic implication of that word Shankaracharya what he said was that if it’s illusion then everything in this world everything that appears in this world becomes an illusion and then even even the concept of Ishwar also becomes to some extent an illusion yes yes so okay so just in some ways okay when you said that the two are similar like the Christian concept of Satan now Satan also there are this what is that book by CSS screw tape letters where he’s talking about how Satan is telling his assistants how to put people in illusion so it’s almost very similar to how we talk about how Maya is going to put okay this person subject this person to this illusion subject that person to that illusion so in terms of this there’s a remarkable amount of similarity so but in terms of say our our struggles in this world against temptation so one difference we could say is that I’m talking about difference between the Shankaracharya’s conception and and say the Christian conception is that even Christians do say that you need the grace of Jesus grace of Christ some Christians differentiate between Jesus and Christ they say Jesus is a manifestation of Christ whichever you want to go into that but the concept of grace is very much there in in Christianity is that concept of grace there ultimately in Advaita Vada because in one sense it’s it might be there in a provisional reality but ultimate reality from what I understand Shankaracharya says only by Jnana one can be liberated not by not by anything else isn’t it yes I mean the this is this is actually you could say the fundamental weakness of Advaita philosophy that there is not I mean so I actually wanted to mention this so in the idea of Anirvachania there’s the way that Shankaracharya gets around the the fact that there is variety in this world that there are things that there are more than one is he says that they neither exist they neither exist nor do they not exist right he says the fundamental ontological position of Maya and this world is that neither exists nor does it not exist now speaking this is you know one can see this but one really cannot make sense of this how can there be something that doesn’t exist and doesn’t not exist how we’ve talked about either existing or not existing how can you have both or neither so he’s trying to make a third ontological category but he’s doing that by accepting something or by making a point that we cannot make sense of that so it seems that to some extent wordplay is required by any tradition which goes toward nihilism isn’t it even the Buddhists have this category that they say the shunya is the state beyond existence and non-existence so it seems remarkably similar to what Shankara is saying and then so what you’re saying is that this is anirvachania so to make sense of something when you propose something that doesn’t make sense then it’s almost like not explaining but explaining away yes isn’t it yes so if if if the world is anirvachania then fine it could be that it’s a third ontological category but in terms of one’s practice which is the point that you’re mentioning here in terms of one’s practice this does pose a problem or or this this maybe not even poses a problem this is an issue that has to be dealt with because if the world does not exist then there’s nothing to nothing to get liberated from right so okay so the first thing that i was mentioning well given that this this you cannot wrap your mind around this one has to at a present moment accept one or the other right so if if the world does not exist there’s nothing to get liberated from hence the whole effort of gaining liberation is meaningless because if it doesn’t exist then what are you trying to get liberation from who gets moksha you know who or what gets moksha it just you know the there’s no question of moksha because it really doesn’t exist and if it does exist then we have to operate with the normal uh vyavaharika you know uh the the day-to-day functioning so in shankaracharya everything has to be understood through that lens so the same idea with grace i mean shankaracharya is translating texts like the vedanta sutra and others that are talking about grace left and right about god about bhakti so he has to make sense of these things so then he says yes we need the grace of the guru we even need the grace of bhagavan i think in his gita commentary he talks about this we need to worship bhagavan we need bhagavan’s grace by doing this we can get liberation so then everything functions as normal but then once we gain liberation then all of a sudden you know none of this exists none of the grace all of these things are important nor are they you know of any relevance so grace does play an important role in shankaracharya’s philosophy he even ascribes temple worship getting mercy of the deity, but then ultimately it all has to lead to jnana, to knowledge, and once you get that right thought, that knowledge, then you get moksha and you become part of Brahma. Now in contrasting that to the Bhagavata philosophy, when understanding the concept of maya, in relation to the concept of maya, grace plays a very important role, because the number one metaphor of maya and our conditioning under maya is that of the dream metaphor, that we are in a dream state, and if someone is dreaming and they’re deep in their dream, the only way to get liberation from that dream is if someone outside of the dream, someone who’s not dreaming comes and shakes them and wakes them up, and that is grace, that eventually we can try as much as we want within the dream world to rise and purify ourselves, but we can actually only break out of it when anugraha, the mercy of the lord is there.
So this is, you know, grace in the Bhagavatam plays a very important role. We see in the story of Narada, Muni and so many of these great sages, in Shankaracharya’s thought it plays a role, but only on the vyavahana kalam. So in one sense, see you started by carving out, when you got into this exploration of maya, you could say the one purpose was to address the science-spirituality discussion, the science-religion discussion from a Hindu perspective, but while doing that it seems that you’re also able to address the diversity within the Hindu conceptions of maya itself and distinguish the Vaishnava position from other positions.
Yes. So when you earlier made this point that the Bhagavatam’s conception of Sankhya, Bhagavatam’s conception of maya is more similar to the Sankhya conception. So now from what I understood in Sankhya, there are basically two realities, there is prakriti and purusha.
So what is Sankhya conception of maya as such? What is their understanding of where maya comes from? How does the Bhagavatam say modify that within its theistic perspective? Right. So and that’s the thing that when we’re speaking of Sankhya, we need to identify which Sankhya that we are speaking of because we have the atheistic Sankhya or often known as the classical Sankhya, which is not necessarily atheistic, it just doesn’t speak, it doesn’t specify whether God exists or not to that degree. And then you have the theistic Sankhya.
So the Bhagavata, it is drawing from the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata even contemporary scholars say is older than classical Sankhya. And so the Mahabharata talks about a theistic Sankhya, a Sankhya that is the same Sankhya that Kapila Muni talks about in the Bhagavatam, a Sankhya that comes from God, that accepts there is a God and that this world is the energy of God.
So the older Sankhya is the theistic Sankhya. This is just, you know, even academically speaking, it’s a fact because the older texts like the epics, they are, you know, they’re dealing with Sankhya. Same thing with the Upanishads.
The Upanishads are clearly theistic texts. And you find the seeds of Sankhya actually in the Upanishads. They talk about the different elements.
So in that Sankhya that you find in the Mahabharata, Maya is the creative power. So Prakriti and Maya are related. Prakriti is the manifestation of Maya.
So Prakriti, you know, so what is Prakriti? You know, all of a sudden in Sankhya you have Prakriti and Purusha. So Purusha, okay, Purusha is the individual principle. You know, it’s the self.
Prakriti is also God. But what is, I mean, sorry, Purusha is also God. Now, but what is Prakriti? Prakriti is nature, but where does it come from? How is it related with this Purusha in these theistic texts? Well, Prakriti is Maya and Maya is the energy of God.
So in the Mahabharata, in the Upanishads and the Vedas, Maya is the energy, right? It is Shakti. It is primarily seen as the power, the power of God. And, you know, in the Vedas, it is a magical power.
Okay. So, in one sense, if I understand right, what you are saying is that the Sankhya, which is often thought of as, as atheistic is more non-theistic. And the theistic conception of Sankhya may actually be older than the non-theistic conception.
Is that what you mean? Yes, it is older. Classical Sankhya, according to modern academics, does come after the epics, like the Mahabharata and definitely after the Upanishads. So the seeds of Sankhya and also Sankhya as you find it in the literature before classical Sankhya is theistic.
And Maya, Prakriti is considered to be Maya. Now, I will give a kind of a disclaimer that Maya is also more of a Vedanta concept. And at a certain point, you know, Prakriti becomes identified with Maya.
So many of these theistic texts, they may not specifically talk about maybe Maya and Prakriti together, but still Prakriti is seen as the, you know, Prakriti comes from God. That’s the basic point, whether exactly they portray it as energy or not, but it is a theistic, you know, the world comes from God. And so at this point, I want to mention that that’s why in the Bhagavatam, many places, the Bhagavatam, a text that explicitly does identify, or you could say, match Maya with Prakriti.
It equalizes the two. In that text, many times, Srila Prabhupada, when Maya is mentioned there, he says Krishna appears by his internal potency, or Maya is the internal potency of God. And we often think that, oh, you know, this is just, you know, the Gaudiya Vaishnava take on Maya.
This is Srila Prabhupada taking Maya, and it doesn’t say Yoga Maya, it just says Maya, and Prabhupada is calling it the internal potency of God, because this is the Gaudiya Vaishnava interpretation. Yes, the English words are kind of, you know, you could say internal potency, it’s the English phrase is there, but that is Srila Prabhupada’s phrase. But the point is that Maya as the power of God is not a Gaudiya Vaishnava idea.
That is the way that Mahabharata uses it. That is the way that you find it in the earlier text, where it’s fundamentally power. So Prabhupada is actually being chased to the way that Maya is actually used.
There’s no reason to believe that Maya has to be negative, it has to be the illusory power, even if the word Yoga is not there. Just the word Maya itself just means power. So Prabhupada is not giving a specific interpretation of it.
One can, based on context, interpret it as an elusive power. But Maya itself as a general word without a context just means power. So it is us stretching based upon context saying that, oh, in this case, it’s elusive or bad, acting in a negative way.
But a literal translation would just say the power of God, which is what Prabhupada is doing in many of these verses that are relating with Krishna. He’s just giving the common translation. And as I was mentioning, the person who interprets it in a specific way, that is Shankaracharya.
He takes it and says, OK, no, Maya also refers to unreality. And therefore, the whole philosophy of Mayavad, he is putting his unique take on it. But as far as what the earlier texts are using it and texts in general, the way it’s being used in the body of literature, Maya just means power, creative power.
Oh, OK. So, if we take this forward, then in, so it’s almost like the same word can, by giving a different meaning, can be used to, you could say, justify or ground entirely different philosophical conception itself. So, if we take that particular angle further, now, what would that mean practically in terms of, so, the understanding that Maya is the energy of Krishna or Maya is the energy of God, is this specifically a Gaudiya Vaishnava understanding or is this a broad Vaishnava understanding itself? And what I’m mentioning is that it’s not even just a Vaishnava understanding.
It is the understanding of the Puranas, the Upanishads, the Mahabharata from Mayan. Even further, the Maya is always seen as energy in the Shvetashvara Upanishad is the energy of Rudra. Now, Maya means energy, so depending on the context, we understand whose energy it is.
So, it might be the energy of Shiva, it might be the energy of Indra, and it might be the energy of Krishna. So, the idea that the world is coming from Krishna’s energy, that is a Vaishnava conception, that Krishna’s energy is creating the world, so that Krishna is the source of everything, that is Vaishnava. Shaivas would say Shiva is the source of everything.
But Maya’s energy, that is for all traditions. Only Shankaracharya said that Maya is not energy. And so, Maya is, you know, fundamentally, that is there.
Now, who has it? That’s a matter of discussion. And this is where the idea then of Yoga Maya comes, which is very interesting, that in the Mahabharata, Yoga Maya is also used, the word Yoga Maya, because Maya is produced from Yoga. And the sages, they also have Maya.
I mean, this word is so broad, it’s not just even used in terms of the world or God. Most commonly, it’s just used in terms of the power that individual beings have. So, sages also have Maya.
Where do they get their Maya power from, their magical power, their mystical power from? They get it from their Yoga. And therefore, Yoga Maya simply means Maya that’s produced from Yoga. In terms of the universe, whose Yoga is it produced from? If it’s produced from Krishna’s Yoga, then the Bhagavatam says this is Krishna’s Yoga Maya.
If it’s produced from Shiva’s Yoga, then it’s, you know, a Shaiva text, which is saying this is Shiva’s Yoga that’s producing it. So, Yoga produces Maya. And therefore, sometimes it’s called Yoga Maya.
And when it’s Krishna’s internal potency, then we use it more specifically Yoga Maya in terms of spiritual things. We use it more in context of that, because it’s Krishna’s own Yoga that’s producing it. But in the Bhagavatam, Yoga Maya is also used to refer to material nature.
And I give instances of that in my book, where Yoga Maya is used to describe the material creation. It doesn’t use specifically just the word Maya. And in the context of Krishna’s Leela, just the word Maya is also used.
And then you see Prabhupada translates it as Krishna’s internal potency. Because Yoga is just a describer, it’s just a qualifier on the word Maya. Yoga is not, it’s just describing where is that Maya coming from.
Okay. That’s quite a significant categorization in terms of the difference. So, is the word Yoga, the concept of Yoga Maya as the divine energy, is that a Gaudiya Vaishnava conception or even that is something which can be drawn from the, you said the Upanishadic texts themselves? So, Yoga Maya as related to Krishna’s Rasa Leela, and Yoga Maya as Krishna’s internal potency that allows for all the Leelas of the cowboys and Mother Yashoda, that is a Gaudiya Vaishnava conception, particularly applying it in that way.
But Yoga Maya as Maya produced from Yoga, and the term Yoga Maya, you find in the Mahabharata, everywhere. The sages, the kings, they perform Yoga to get Maya, then they get Yoga Maya and from that they attack the other party. And whoever has more Yoga Maya, they will conquest, they will win, they will be more powerful.
So, Yoga Maya, as the power produced from Yoga, is all over the place. In the Mahabharata, not so much in the Upanishads, but the Mahabharata, the Puranas, in other literature as well. That’s significant.
And so, overall, when we talk about the concept of Maya in our tradition, and when we seek the mercy of the Lord for, say, for developing a love for him, for overcoming the influence of Maya, the tempting influence of Maya. So, is there, you could say that, is there a categorical difference in the way we would, so the concept of grace, we could say, is common between, say, Christianity and Vaishnavism to some extent, or Bhakti tradition. But is there, because the devil is antagonistic and Maya which is not, so is there any other practical difference that will be there in in our practices based on the different divergent understanding? So, I’m just trying to take this discussion now from a more abstract level to a, you could say, a more practical level.
So, how does the, how does getting a more refined understanding of Maya change our practice of Sadhana or change our, the way we live in the world? Yes, I think, I think it does, very practically, because when we have a deeper understanding of Maya, then unlike Satan and, you know, these other evil conceptions, conceptions of evil, we will see Maya more as our friend than as something to be overcome or an enemy. So, Maya will, we will see, okay, and this is, you know, the crux of the philosophy that rather than seeing Maya as an enemy, but engaging Maya in the Lord’s service, engaging Maya in Krishna’s service. So, we see it, okay, this is the potency of God, this is divine.
That this is Krishna’s own divine power. So, because it is Krishna’s own divine power, one, it’s more powerful than me. There’s nothing in the world that I can do.
There’s no amount of spirituality, meditation, yoga that I can do by which I can overcome this Maya. This Maya is more powerful than me. I have to surrender to it.
It is God’s power, right? But I can cross over this if I use Maya in the service of the owner of Maya, which is Krishna. So, there’s no way that I can overcome. This is far more powerful than me.
So, and therefore, the importance of grace, of the importance of bhakti, of mercy, that I have to appeal to the Lord out of love, out of mercy, that please remove it because this energy is more powerful than me, and please allow me to see its proper use in its proper way. I remember, I think one time, Satchinandana Maharaj, he said this, that as long as we try to fight Maya, it will always overcome us and disturb us. But when we are appreciating Maya in the service of the Lord, then we can overcome it.
So, this is the difference of viewpoint, yes, that the impersonalist sees it as bad, jagat mithya, this is all false, or even, you know, anyone, you know, a spiritualist tends to see that this world is very, very bad. But then the advanced spiritualist sees, well, there’s a great opportunity in this world, and actually this world is very, very nice. He enjoys the world on the basis of seeing that all of this is the energy of the Lord, and I’m going to engage it in the Lord’s service.
And so, it’s so beautiful, it’s so wonderful because it is the energy, it is the power of my dear Lord, and I’m going to engage it and utilize it for its proper purpose. Appreciating Maya, it’s quite a remarkable concept. I think Prabhupada says in the Queen Kunti prayers, that his, one of his lectures that that Maya is ultimately meant to make you more serious in your bhakti of Krishna.
So, that’s also an appreciation. May Prabhupada put something like that, Maya checks whether you want to serve Krishna or you want to disturb Krishna. So, it’s a nice way of putting it.
Yes, it is. Now, of course, until we can actually see its connection with Krishna, because it is so powerful, we should also be a little cautious. Like Prabhupada said, we should be afraid of Maya.
So, we cannot become too overconfident, because we have to, you know, there’s like, there’s sort of a strategy that Krishna’s given, that this is the way out. So, we have to follow that strategy, that is the regulated principles and all these things. But the real vision or the deeper vision of the devotees that know, like Prabhupada says, you know, that the world is so beautiful, then how beautiful must be its creator? And how can I engage this, the beautiful things in this world in God’s service? That is the real thing, not to say, oh, it’s ugly.
It is beautiful, it’s very nice, but how to engage it in God’s service? And it’s interesting that actually this concept was very much there in the, you know, 17th, 18th century in Western Europe among the Christian priests, that this is the birth of modern science, this is how science began, that they said that studying nature was studying the mind of God. And because the world is the mind of God and it’s the handiwork of God, then studying the handiwork of God was a way of worshiping Him. So, it was their form of worship to appreciate the glory of God.
So, recognizing the relationship of Maya with God, that is the key thing. Hmm. You know, with respect to this point, that there is simultaneous appreciation and caution both.
There is this, the Bhagavad Gita also talks about how everything beautiful in this world represents a spark of Krishna’s splendor, yad yad vibhuti mad sattvam, shreemadurjitam eva va tattva deva avadachchattam mama tejyamamsa sambhava. So, to some extent, if one is at a level when one can, you could say, appreciate without getting captivated or one has developed a sufficient level of either we could say detachment so that one doesn’t get captivated by it or one has developed a certain level of devotion by which one is captivated by something higher. Then there is the capacity to appreciate Maya also.
So, I would like to, we can take this discussion concluding parts in two different directions. Maybe we could be able to put in both. So, you mentioned earlier that you talk about three levels of Maya.
One is that the human condition and the divine conditioning and a human conditioning divine condition and then and the world itself. Was that the three things you mentioned? Yes, the world, the human condition, divine condition. Yes.
Yeah. So, then how do we relate this with the Bhagavatam chatu shloka definition that rite artham yat pratiyetana pratiyet chaatmani tam vidyad atmano maya itha vaso yatha tamadat to see anything as significant separate from its connection with the ultimate reality. That is Maya.
So, is that Maya being defined in terms of the human conditioning or where would you put that understanding? Yes. Yes. So, just one thought and then we’ll come to this point that in the Bhagavatam repeatedly it says Maya as Atma Maya, Krishna Maya that this Maya is subordinate and coming is coming from Krishna and is subordinate to Krishna, right? So, this Maya depends on Krishna.
It’s dependent on Krishna and this is a very fundamental difference between the concept of evil in a tradition that sees it in competition with God as opposed to depending upon God. There’s a verse in the Bhagavatam that as soon as Maya sees Krishna, she feels as if ashamed even though she’s coming from Krishna but because she has the unpalatable work to elude us and take us through this material world, she feels ashamed. So, she’s clearly in a subordinate position to Krishna, not in one of competition or like that.
And so, one has to recognize the subordinate role of Maya to Krishna and therefore the devotee is engaging Maya and Krishna service without getting attracted to Maya but being attracted to Krishna. So, it’s still subordinate to Krishna. So, our main object of attachment is Krishna but we are engaging Maya and Krishna service.
Now, as far as the Chatur Shloki Bhagavatam, how it uses this verse, it’s very, very, you know, nice this beautiful verse. So, Krishna here is making the same point that this is my Maya. It’s coming from my own Atma.
This Maya is actually originating from the Lord but this is my Maya. So, in the Chatur Shloki Bhagavatam, it is saying that this whole world is coming from me. This is nothing but me, right? That’s the first verse.
And so, therefore, if you see something as separate from me, you see this world as separate from me, then that is called Maya. You are seeing it but you are seeing it as separate from me and that is your Maya. So, because it is part of me, it is actually nothing but me.
It’s all just a part of this world. So, the first verse says that Krishna is everything. The second verse then puts qualifications to it.
It says, no, there’s things that are separate or there’s things not that are separate but that there’s oneness and difference. It emphasizes the different side. But then the third verse, this verse is then saying, no, but then if you see them as completely separate from the Lord, if you see them as separate from the Lord, then you are in my Maya.
Then you are engaged, you have fallen into Maya. So, although we have oneness and difference and we see the difference, we see the oneness, but still we cannot forget that although things are different from the Lord, we are different from God. But Maya means if we don’t see their connection with God, they’re still connected with God.
So, therefore, Prabhupada, he translates this verse and he says that he gives the explanation of the shadow and the reality that Maya is trying to just live or see the shadow world without recognizing the relationship of the shadow with reality, with the object that it is the shadow of. So, Prabhupada makes a big point of this, that this is what Maya is basically. It’s forgetting that relationship, which is the human condition.
So, the world is always the world. The Maya as a creative power is always going to be the world. That is clearly the world.
Maya, yoga Maya, Krishna’s spiritual energy, his energy which manifests the internal spiritual world, that is also as it is. The only part that needs work is Maya in relation to the human condition, that our vision needs to change and we have to see the world in relationship with Krishna. So, this verse is in terms of the human condition.
Yes. So, it’s striking that here Achintya Vahidawada also comes in then, wherein the conception of Maya, you could say, the conception of Maya itself and the nature of how we pursue Maya also. Yes.
So, now taking this forward, maybe this could be the concluding point. We can discuss that. See, there is to some extent, when we start our spiritual practices, we often get a black and white understanding.
This is Maya and this is Krishna. And then as we move forward, we start getting a more nuanced understanding. Okay, everything is not just black and white, that there are shades of grey.
So, for example, we may learn the devotees and everybody is not a devotee. We may use every, it’s almost every tradition seems to have some pejorative way to refer to those who are not its followers. Now, we may use the word karmis, Christians may use the word pagans, Muslims may use the word kafirs.
So, that inside or outside differentiation is there. But that can also lead to a lot of polarization and conflicts also. So, now, as devotees, as we grow in our spiritual life, then we start realizing that the borders between, you could say, Maya and non-Maya don’t neatly coincide with the borders between say affiliation with the tradition and non-affiliation with the tradition or even more damagingly affiliation with the institution and non-affiliation with the institution.
So, this black and white understanding of what is Maya, what is not Maya. So, in one sense, we can say that even a person who is a mundane singer, maybe like Prabhupada, saw in Alan Ginsberg, there was so much which was there’s so much which was objectionable. He was a gay person.
He was advocating drugs and as a means to spirituality, which is quite opposed to what Prabhupada was saying. And he was he was a pioneer of the whole counterculture. And at the same time, Prabhupada saw the good within him.
So, he saw that, in fact, I read one conversation where Prabhupada says, you know, blessed by Krishna. There was this Ohio State University program where, but it is a big, one of the biggest college programs Prabhupada had, which was organized by devotees. And Prabhupada wanted Alan to start the sing, do the kirtans in the beginning.
And then he said, you also give the talk. He said, no, no Swami, this is your tradition. You give the talk.
And then Prabhupada said, you know, you give the talk. He says, no, this is your tradition. Prabhupada said, you lead the singing.
He says, you are blessed by Krishna. So, that is a nuanced understanding where Prabhupada could see, yes, there are many things which are, you could say, the results of the influence of Maya, but still there are results of the influence of Krishna also within him. So, this black and white conception of spirituality, of bhakti, sometimes it can be very damaging because we can label and alienate anybody who is not a devotee.
So, do you feel that this nuanced understanding of Maya can also help us avoid such black and white understandings? And I think Prabhu, you put it really well, actually. This is the very purpose of, in some ways, the practical purpose of this study, that a very, you know, just black and white picture misses the nuanced understanding of the nature of the world, the nature of the creation. Because, you know, that’s the thing, the black and white understanding is that Maya is something negative, is something bad, is something to be overcome and avoided.
But a more nuanced understanding, which Srila Prabhupada is presenting, is that, no, it’s also the energy of the Lord. And ultimately, Maya is being compassionate. Maya’s role is one of compassion.
Prabhupada says this actually in one place, that Maya is the manifestation of Krishna’s compassion. So, there isn’t really something like Maya and Krishna, or something like black and white. Even those in so-called Maya are still in the arms of Krishna.
They’re still under the veil of Krishna’s own power. And this world is not fundamentally bad. It’s just, it needs to be used in Krishna’s service.
So, this is, you know, this is, in fact, the illusion. This is, in fact, the problem, that we are seeing things as separate from the Lord. That is the problem.
So, if we continue seeing them as separate from God, if we see one person as separate from God, this person is bad, like you were saying. Every tradition sees the non-believers in negative terms. Then we are still in Maya, because we’re still seeing things as separate from the Lord.
And it’s interesting in the Bhagavatam, there’s the pastime of Jain Vijay. And if we go to actually that pastime, that story, that narration, then their offense was, the reason why they were falling from the spiritual world, is because they were seeing separate from the Lord. It particularly mentions this.
They’re seeing separate from the Lord. They were seeing difference, that, oh, these children, these devotees, they’re just children. They’re just, they’re not sages.
They are just children, so we should not allow them. They were making distinction. One is, you know, they were seeing as separate, that, oh, this is just boys.
And because they’re boys, they cannot be devotees, or they’re not sages, right? But the Lord did not have that vision. He was seeing them in absolute terms, that, okay, no, that vision is of what is pleasing to the Lord, what is not. That’s only, you know, no duality there.
Only one vision, what is pleasing to the Lord. So because they were seeing separate from the Lord, therefore they were falling. So we have to see everything in relation to Krishna.
That is what Bhagavatam is telling us. Now, we don’t accept everything, because we’re not meant to accept everything, but we still have to see everything in relation to Krishna, like you’re saying. So, yeah, that Maya, and I should mention that many people have observed this.
The German philosopher, Paul Dussin, he said that Maya is the most important concept, or you say the most central concept in all of Eastern thought. And then Sanskritist, more recent Sanskritist, Daniel Ingalls, he said that Maya is one of the most beautiful concepts in the history of, in the intellectual history of religious thought, he said. Really? Yes.
He said one of the most beautiful concepts. And it’s precisely because of this, because it allows us a way to connect the world with God, to subsume the evil elements the bad elements with God, and at the same time, God remains transcendental, because of this conception of energy or Maya. And so it gives us a way, it’s one of those beautiful concepts, it gives us a way to relate God and his energy.
Of course, then that raises new problems that, okay, well, if this world is the energy of God, then why is there evil and suffering in this world? Why is it, you know, so difficult the way it is? But that we talked about in our previous discussion, the problem of evil, that well, no, this is why Maya is compassion, Maya is teaching us, it’s training us, now in very difficult ways sometimes, but still it’s training us and it’s connected with God. So it is very much a very beautiful conception, the energy, the idea of energy or Shakti, Maya Shakti, because it allows for oneness and difference, unity and diversity. This is, we always talk about how the Krishna conception of God is beautiful, but the idea of the conception of Maya is also beautiful.
I remember reading this long ago, but it didn’t register in me at that time. So when you’re saying it’s beautiful in the sense that, are you saying that it’s beautiful in the sense that it helps us reconcile the distressful nature of the world with a merciful God, or what is the beauty in this? The beauty is the compassion. It’s a beautiful concept because now all of a sudden the world being evil and horrible and it’s now a compassion mother, that Maya as mother, that is creating this world as a playground for us so we can come back to Him.
So the beauty is in the Lord’s compassion and His love, that actually the world is not a place of punishment. The world is not created by God to take and enjoy seeing us suffer, take us and make us suffer, but rather the world is created by God out of His compassion as a way to bring us back to Him. Therefore it’s a very beautiful concept, for this reason and also for the other reason which you are mentioning, that it allows us to philosophically reconcile the relationship between the world and God.
It’s allowed the tradition to do that. How is the world coming from God, yet it is also separate from God. And so in Vyasa’s vision at the beginning of the Bhagavatam, he sees the whole creation, he sees everything and he sees three things.
He sees the Lord, he sees the living beings and he sees Maya, the Lord’s energy. And he sees that the living beings are struggling very hard in this material creation. So Maya is the way that Krishna relates with the living beings and it’s His role of compassion.
So that is what the whole vision or conception and motivation of the world changes. Oh, okay. That’s striking.
And then that brings us again to the, to you could say, we didn’t get so much time to discuss the concept of Yoga Maya and the idea of how Krishna performs Leela, which of course is a very beautiful understanding. But here we can say that when Krishna, when we say connect Maya with the idea of compassion, then it also, it also, going back to the earlier black and white conception, see often the black and white conception, the metaphor that is used is often of a war, that we are fighting a war against the illusory energy. And Propel also uses that conception, I think, with respect to caution, that metaphor is helpful.
But we could, if we consider Maya as compassionate, then we could maybe use the word metaphor of education or something like that, where, yes, there are tests and a student has to pass the test and the student, there are grave consequences student doesn’t pass. But the student doesn’t have adversarial relationship with, with the educational system. It’s not that there is somebody out to deliberately fail the student.
So in that sense, also the level of hostility or level of negativity can be decreased if we have this more compassionate understanding of the purpose of Maya. Yeah, no. And that was eye-opening for me, you see, like, because on one hand, we have the image of Krishna playing the flute with the cowboys and, you know, this beautiful spiritual dimension, like you’re saying, conception of Krishna is so beautiful.
So we have this wonderful Krishna who’s, who’s there, loving all the cows and, and, and the cow, you know, the residents of Vrindavan. And then we have this material world, which is so horrible, and everything’s so bad. So how do we take this beautiful Krishna and this world and we reconcile the two? People say this is a joke, you know, I mean, it’s like, okay, God is so wonderful loving, but why not seeing an application? And honestly, this used to bother me a lot personally also, like, why, why is this like this? You know, what is, you know, I mean, if Krishna is so kind, why couldn’t he find, you know, a better way to do this? But then after studying, you know, after examining the conception of Maya, we understand that, well, like you’re saying it is, it is very difficult.
But, but Maya’s mother, you know, Krishna’s coming as the mother and helping us, training us. You know, anything that happens is not bad. Therefore, everything has a good purpose, because it helps us progress.
It’s always progress in this world. It’s always progress as a mother is trying to help the child progress. So the conception of a God as father and judge has changed from to a conception of mother and nurturing, that the mother nurtures, Maya is nurturing the soul, helping the soul reach the place where it wants to reach, but is unable to do so.
So it’s, it’s nurturing the soul through these experiences to come to the place where we want to be. That’s, that’s striking. So when you talk about Maya as, or the world as a nurturing place, you know, long ago, when the tsunami had happened, I had, I had written some articles responding that in Indian newspapers, like trying to make sense of the whole tragedy.
So I had, somebody had forwarded me a book and they had, that book contained the responses of various world traditions, world religious traditions. How do you make sense of it? And I was quite disappointed at that time to see that the Hindu response, it had been written by, by an, by a Advaitic scholar. So it says that the suffering doesn’t matter because ultimately this world is like a dream.
So everything here is illusion. Suffering also is illusion. And it seemed to be a very dehumanizing way of looking at, looking at the gravity and the immensity of the catastrophe that had visited humanity at that time.
So the idea, sometimes the idea is that if we treat Maya simply as illusion, then the sufferings that we go through, they seem, they do seem pointless. But if we see Maya as, as the energy of the Lord, then even if we can’t make sense of the sufferings, but still we understand that they are having a purpose, that they will help us grow. Sometimes when we are studying also, we may not particularly understand why we have to do a particular assignment or why we have to study a subject which we don’t like or why we are subjected to particular kinds of disciplines.
But we understand that overall we are in a framework which is going to help us grow. So that idea of Maya, that, that Maya is conveying the meaninglessness, conveying the meaninglessness of events in the world, is that broadly an Advaitic idea? So, as I mentioned, the dream metaphor is used over 60 times in the Bhagavatam. It’s the most common metaphor that is used in the Bhagavatam to describe the human condition.
And it’s also metaphor that Shankaracharya uses. But see, it’s, to answer your question specifically that you were saying, it’s, it’s, it’s an idea that’s both in Shankaracharya in Advaitic idea and also Vaishnava idea. But the difference is what we do with it.
So, in the, so one thing that across the board, all the, all the schools of Vedanta agree is that the world is temporary. And because it is temporary, the things of this world lose its value. I mean, I mean, it becomes less valuable.
If something’s temporary, it’s less valuable. Well, in the Advaitic idea, or you could say just as a general thing, yes, that minimizes the importance of the world. It minimizes the importance of so many things.
But Vaishnava idea also uses the dream analogy. And important to realize that both Shankaracharya and the Vaishnava school are both taking the dream metaphor from the Upanishads. So, the dream metaphor is not coming from Shankaracharya.
The metaphor of the snake and the rope is not coming from Shankaracharya. They’re coming from previous texts, and they both take those metaphors, but they do different things with it. So, in the Vaishnava conception, it is a dream, and it’s all temporary.
But then, the fact that it is temporary does not reduce its value. It, in fact, becomes very, very important because it is the activities in the dream world that take us out of the dream world and allow us to engage in the permanent world. So now, those same activities with a different worldview are now having, are becoming so much more meaningful.
Because yes, all traditions agree that they’re temporary. But on one hand, you know, just general Vedanta, you know, other Vedanta schools, they said, well, it’s temporary. Therefore, it’s meaningless.
It’s not important. It’s temporary. Forget about it.
But now, Bhagavatam is saying, no, it’s very, very important. It’s temporary, but it is very, very important. Because even though it’s temporary, it is specifically your actions in the dream that will allow you to break out of the dream, that will inspire the grace of God and allow you to break out of a dream.
So those same, very same temporary activities become of ultimate, become of eternal importance. They become of eternal importance because they lead us to eternality. And that’s why, like you’re saying, I love your point that the Bhagavatam brings more significance and meaning to our suffering in this world.
It brings more significance and meaning to our activities in this world. Because that suffering will lead us to the permanent. It is meaningful.
It’s not just illusion, like you were saying that, that, oh, it’s all, suffering doesn’t exist. Well, how does that help? I am suffering. I am suffering.
And this is so painful. How does that help me to know that actually doesn’t exist? Or how is that being compassionate or conscientious, if we say that? Certainly, it exists. But it’s meaningful because it is only meaningful because it takes us to the permanent.
So, overall, the, again, this point comes that it’s not just a matter of what the principle is or what the metaphor is. It’s also how the metaphor is explained or how the metaphor is applied. So, the dream metaphor, what you said is something which I have also emphasized that sometimes the dream metaphor is a, you wake up from the dream and you get out of, you get out of the illusion and you realize it’s just a dream.
So, Vande Vidya Bhushan, I think in his Govinda Bhashya, he says that, in his commentary, he says that, in one sense, he actually inverts this dream metaphor. I found that one of the most brilliant explanations. He says that, is this, this world is like a dream.
But then he argues that, like the dream, in the dream also sometimes we experience reality. Sometimes the Guru appears, sometimes Krishna appears. So, when he says that, when we say the world is like a dream, instead of calling the world as unreal, he uses the same metaphor to say that even the dream can be real.
Yes. And the difference is that, so, if the world, if our waking reality and dream reality also both real, then what is the difference? So, he says, in the waking reality, there is the possibility to practice sadhana by which you can wake up, by which you can actually wake up. So, the waking reality, it’s not just simply like a dream by one activity, one will wake up and then realize.
In the waking state, we have to consciously act according to dharma, according to and pursue, initially as pursue, pursue the enlightenment. So, that’s why it even the, so, the dream reality is not meant to trivialize our experience, we can say, but it is meant to, you could say, encourage us to pursue a higher experience through our experience and through our actions in this world, through our experiences in this world. Yes.
Yes. And I would go as far as saying, because the world is real, therefore, it is like a dream. Because a dream is real, therefore, we experience it, therefore, we cry, therefore, we scream and shout in the dream, because there is a real experience to it.
And in one place, just adding to what you’re saying, what you said was a complete thought, I, you know, but in one place, Prabhupada actually says this, again, I wish I had saved the quote, but he says this, he says that, um, uh, you know, this world is a dream. This world is a dream compared to the spiritual world, right? Because it’s temporary, it has a beginning and an end. This world is like a dream.
And within this world, we are dreaming. So, that’s a dream within a dream. And so, Prabhupada says that when we serve Krishna, we start serving him so much that we are serving him in the dream within the dream, then we break out of the dream of mature life.
So, Prabhupada says that the advanced devotee is so much absorbed in Krishna’s service in this world, that even when he’s dreaming at night, he’s serving Krishna. And when we come to that point of intensity, that even in our dreams, we’re serving Krishna, then we break out of the dream of mature life, of this dream. So, when serving Krishna within the dream of the dream.
So, in this, presently at this time, like you were saying, in our dream, we’re serving Krishna. And the fact that we’re serving Krishna in a dream doesn’t make it any less significant than if we’re serving him in the waking state. It’s just where we are serving him.
The dream world is a location, you know, like when we’re dreaming at night, we go to different places. Those locations exist in our mind. And so, we’re going to different locations in our mind.
So, when we are serving Krishna in all locations, this material world, which is a dream, and also within the locations of our mind, that is the night dream, all the places we’re serving Krishna, then we break out of this dream. And in fact, this is one of the problems, philosophical problems in Western philosophy and also Eastern philosophy, and that is the problem of the dream within a dream. And Roger Corleas and Plato himself, Socrates, many of them dealt with this.
They said that, you know, if this world is like a dream, which they believed it was, this world is a dream, then once we wake up, how do we know we’re still not in a dream? Because, you know, if I’m, this world is a dream. Bhagavatam says that we know beginning and end. So, it’s all a dream, just like the night dream.
Why do we think the dream is a dream? Why do we consider the night time experience to be a dream? We consider it that because it’s temporary. That’s the reason. That’s the only reason why.
We know that it doesn’t stay, it goes away. It has a beginning and an end. Therefore, we say it’s a dream.
Well, this life also has an end, as sure as death, we say, right? It has an end. So, therefore, this world also has to be a dream. So, even philosophers who are not devotees, they figured it out, that, you know, this world is also a dream.
It’s just a hundred-year dream. But then Plato said, well, once we wake up, then that state, how do we know, again, I’m not dreaming? I might be dreaming again. And then I wake up again, I might be dreaming again.
So, how will I ever know if we come to the point of actual reality? Well, the only way that we know that we’ll actually come to the point of actual reality is when we come to a world that is eternal, that never ends. Then we can be sure that I’m not dreaming. And the reason is, is because even if we are dreaming, if the world is eternal, that is the world that we know.
And so, therefore, it’s not a dream. If the world is eternal, it’s not a dream because the very definition of a dream is a temporary state. It has an end, therefore, we call it a dream.
But an endless world, a world that is eternal, it cannot be a dream because it’s eternal. That is the world that we’re going to be. So, what you’re saying is that the only way to come out of this infinite regress is by positing an eternal world.
And just to maybe take this point a little further, then how do we decide where the infinite regress ends? So, we have a dream world, then we have a waking world. So, we could say that because both these worlds or both these experiences are temporary. So, anything that is temporary could be or would be a step forward in the regress, would be prone to regression.
But if something is eternal, then it won’t be prone to regression. So, in that sense, these two are temporary, but the spiritual level of reality is eternal. So, that’s where the regression ends.
That’s how. That’s where it ends and to my knowledge, that’s the only way we can know it ends. Yeah, that is true.
That’s the only way we can know because any world that we’re in, we don’t know that am I dreaming right now or am I awake, except if we see that this world is eternal. And of course, when we are with Krishna, then all knowledge comes to us. But just philosophically speaking, this is the fundamental difference.
This is why the spiritual world is the real world because it is eternal. And any world in this, any place in this world, be it Brahma’s abode, is not spiritual. It is still a dream because it’s temporary.
Beautiful. So, in one sense, Krishna is telling about also in the sense that these are places of distress because they are temporary. They are rather, you could put it, they are temporary and that’s how they are places of distress.
So, whereas the other Maya abode is the place where you will, where it’s eternal and it’s free from distress. Yes, so beautiful. Then one nice story, beautiful story of the monk, Jung Su, he is a Taoist Buddhist monk and at night he dreams that he’s a butterfly.
So, one morning he wakes up and he begins running around the whole monastery asking the other monks, am I a butterfly dreaming that I’m a monk or am I a monk dreaming that I’m a butterfly? He says, because at night I was a butterfly and I was dreaming that I’m a monk and now I’m a monk and I’m, sorry, at night I was a monk dreaming that I’m a butterfly and now I’m trying to figure out, am I, you know, a butterfly dreaming that I’m a monk or am I a monk dreaming that I’m a butterfly? And finally, yes, finally the point is that actually both are dreaming states. The monk is right. During the day he’s a monk dreaming, sorry, during the day he’s a monk dreaming or he may be a butterfly dreaming that he’s a monk and at night he’s a monk dreaming that he’s a butterfly.
Both are temporary, they’re both dream worlds. The only real world is the spiritual world. Amazing, so should I try to summarize? You’d like to add some concluding points? Thank you, yeah.
It’s been wonderful. So we started discussing today about the concept of, you could say broadly what Maya is and what it isn’t. So that was a broad topic.
So when you started your study of science and religion, so from the Hindu perspective something is to be explained and the concept of Maya became central and that’s how you decide to, that was one impetus for you to explore the subject and write the book. And even within modern science, the idea that what science observes is not necessarily the same as the nature of reality. That has become evident not just through quantum physics but even through the conception say of space and time being within the universe, in the relativity.
So all that science can study is space and time, not the universe itself. So what do we mean by when you want to study the universe or even dark matter and things like that? So technologically science is progressing but in terms of core science, it could be that science has advanced so much that it has encountered its own limits. And if we consider science and religion are asking the same questions about the nature of reality, then science is now exploring those questions whereas religious traditions have been exposing, has been investigating those questions for thousands of years.
So it could, we can reasonably infer that these traditions may have valuable insights that we can turn towards. And then, so we talked about when we come to the concept of Maya that there is a distance between the world as we experience it and the reality. So you talk about, was it Kant, Immanuel Kant who talked about nomina and phenomena? So that idea is there.
Prabhupada also uses those words I think in 7.3, in 7.2 actually. So there we discussed about, so within the concept of Maya, somehow the Advaitic understanding is quite widespread. And so we contrasted, so you brought out some significant parallels between the Advaitic understanding of Maya and the Judeo-Christian understanding.
So the idea that Satan is opposed to God and similarly Maya within the Advaitic tradition is something separate from Brahman, something which stops us from going towards Brahman and has its own, although they say everything is one, but essentially you end up with Maya as something separate. So in one sense, those who are monists are actually dualists, because although they say that Maya is not real, but it is, it essentially becomes, Aniruddha Chinna becomes not just an epistemological status category, but also becomes like ontological category. So you put it nicely that this is Shankaracharya’s contribution, not a scriptural teaching, not a Vedic teaching.
And so then the result of this is that there could be a devaluation of the world, which we came to later. But the concept of mercy, which is there in the Christian tradition, which is also there in the Vaishnava tradition, that is, that may be there in the Advaitic tradition, but it is only in the Vyavaharic level. There is no ultimately mercy.
It is, you have to rely on Jnana. And then we explore that. So you said that the Bhagavatam’s conception of Maya.
So there are, how many you said, 300 references to Maya in the Bhagavatam? Or how many? Over 500. That’s significant. So the word Maya may be used in different senses at different places.
But if we understand the broad philosophical conception, then we can contextualize the various usages. So Maya, the Bhagavatam’s conception of Maya is more drawn from the Sankhya text where Maya is seen as Prakriti. So Purusha and Prakriti are two distinct categories of existence.
And similarly, there is the Bhagavan or the Ishwara and then there is Maya, which may not be specified as the energy of Purusha in the Sankhya text. You could say that the classical Sankhya is maybe, is not so much atheistic as non-theistic. And what the Mahabharata talks about is older Sankhya, which is theistic.
And the Bhagavatam, you could say, develops that conception of Sankhya and places it within the context of Bhakti also. And then the Advaitic conceptions of Maya is talked about as a creative energy, even in the Vedas, in the Upanishads. But what Shankaracharya does is that he takes that to mean illusion.
And then everything that comes in the world, even the world as well as the Lord, all that becomes illusion, which is not necessarily the scriptural understanding. Then we discussed about, when we talk about Maya, there are three levels. There is the human, it’s a psychological level, where human conditioning, how it affects it.
And there is the ontological, you could say the world itself is the domain of Maya. And then there is the ultimately the supreme, there is the Maya is the divine condition, that is how she acts in the spiritual world. So Yoga Maya is like, so the concept of Maya is energy is not just a Gaudiya Vaishnava conception, but it’s a, not even a Vaishnava conception, you could say that it’s a broad Upanishadic conception.
And then when we talked about Maya further, the idea that if we see Maya simply as illusion, broadly there could be several negative effects. One is we conceive existence as adversarial, that rather we see it’s like more like a war than education. And then that may create unnecessary negativity that can also lead to devaluation of the world, where we see the world simply, events in the world simply as chaotic and meaningless.
But if you see it as education, then you see there is something to learn from everything that happens. The world is purposefully arranged for our growth. And then it can also lead to denigration of demonization of those who are in Maya.
So that one zero understanding of black and white or inside or outside a kind of understanding that is, that reflects more Advaitic understanding of the nature of world than the Vaishnava understanding, which is that yes, we do need caution so that we don’t get entangled by Maya. But we also need appreciation that Maya is the energy of Krishna. And when we see attractive things in the world, they can point us toward Krishna.
And then toward the conclusion, we discussed about how this understanding of Maya actually, when we see this as an expression of Krishna’s compassion, of compassion ultimately, then it can help us move forward in our bhakti in a more, in a way that Maya is like a mother nourishing us, although testing us and nourishing us, but that can help us move forward. So the dreams are not unreal in the sense that they don’t, that the world is like a dream, not in the sense that the world is false, but that they are similar in the sense that both are temporary. And the way to avoid infinite regresses, we move from the temporary toward the eternal.
Any points you want to add, Prabhu? No, I think that was a really nice point, nice summary, Prabhu. And I personally really enjoyed this conversation. Your own insights actually helped me understand this topic better and understand the relationship between different points.
So it was a very, very enlightening experience speaking with you and discussing this with you. I’m happy to be of service. It’s wonderful to have this discussion and we’ll provide a link for your book also, since now that it’s available in India.
Now viewers can get a copy of the book also and they can dive deeper into the discussion. Thank you very much for joining today and look forward to having you again sometime in the future. Yes.
Hare Krishna.