Why does Gita 7.25 use yoga-maya instead of maha-maya?

From Keshava Kashmiri P

Srila prabhupada have many times stated the difference between mahamaya and yogamaya in his purports . but this specific verse of bhagavad gita talks about ,how lord krishna covers his identity from the people who are not devotees (as stated “fools and unintelligent ” ) then why krishna uses a word yogamaya ,and not mahamaya . By yogamaya potency ,krishna’s devotees like gopis ,arjuna ,mother yashoda ,krishna hideS his identity of being supreme lord ,so that he can relish the sweetness of his devotees love in various rasa . whereas mahamaya is specifically used to bewilder atheist and faithless .then wouldn’t it be more appropriate ,if verse 7.25 would have talked about mahamaya
PLEASE EXPLAIN .

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
now question to Keshav Kashmiri Prabhu why does the Bhagavad Gita 7.25 use Yogamaya instead of Mahamaya the context here is that those who are the foolish and unintelligent are covered over so this should refer to Mahamaya which covers the conditioned souls and not Yogamaya which refers to pure devotees who are covered over by Krishna so why is this usage of Yogamaya instead of Mahamaya answer every scripture has a particular context and a particular purpose and for that it uses some analytical framework and when it uses that analytical framework then we need to we cannot simplistically impose one analytical framework on another scripture so for example the Bhagavatam say talks about Sankhya analysis into 24 elements at some places at other places it talks about say analysis of the material world into lesser number of elements 14, 15 so these are different ways of analyzing the same thing and in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that he appreciates this so these are different ways of analyzing things so the Bhagavad Gita is not talking too much about directly the spiritual world and the interaction between devotees and Krishna at the spiritual level so the Bhagavad Gita doesn’t talk about Yogamaya the illusion the divine illusion that actually covers up covers the pure devotees and hides the position of Krishna so Mahamaya and Yogamaya both make devotees forget Krishna people forget Krishna’s position but Yogamaya makes it such that it increases the devotees attraction to Krishna where Mahamaya makes it makes the covering such that people become more attracted to worldly things so now the Bhagavad Gita points to the existence of spiritual world but does not go into details of the spiritual world that’s why the analytical category of Mahamaya and Yogamaya does not apply to the Gita’s framework just like we can have the Bhagavad Gita talks about four categories of people who surrender to Krishna but then Bhaktivinoda Thakur talks in Chaitanya Chikshambhur about four levels at which people approach God fear, desire, duty and love now can we correlate the fear, desire, duty, love with Artha, Artha, Arthi, Jijnasa, Artha, Arthi some correlation can be made but they are different different analytical frameworks and we cannot superimpose one analytical framework on another so in particular analytical frameworks particular words may have particular meanings those meanings are not applicable outside that analytical framework so Yogamaya within the Gaudiya Vaishnav analytical framework refers to the divine energy which which covers the pure devotees in the spiritual world or in the pure devotees in general so now that is not the analytical framework that the Bhagavad Gita is using so the Bhagavad Gita is using the word Yogamaya simply to refer to the covering that happens on the soul so the word Yoga now what does the word Yogamaya mean? the word Yogamaya in this so here the foolish people they cannot know me Krishna says so Yogamaya here simply refers to the Maya that prevents Yoga so Yogamaya so the Yogamaya can refer to the Maya that brings about Yoga but it can also Yoga can mean connection and Maya because of which connection doesn’t happen so the Bhagavad Gita for that matter doesn’t even use the word Mahamaya so Mamamaya Krishna says so because it is not explicitly talking about the analytical category of Yogamaya and Mahamaya so that terminology does not apply over here and we cannot say that the Bhagavad Gita itself refers to Yogamaya or Mahamaya directly further the point is Prabhupada would also say that actually there is only one energy of Krishna and sometime when we have a desire to serve then that energy takes us towards Krishna and when we have a desire to enjoy that energy helps us to go away from Krishna as per our desire so just as an electric switch can heat or cool electricity can heat or cool depending on whether it is going through a heater or through a air conditioner similarly there is ultimately one energy of Krishna which can be further classified into various categories based on the specific functions that they are doing so Krishna here is not talking about the kind of classification that is done by the Gaudiya Vishnu Acharyas and in terms of say Mahamaya and Yogamaya Krishna is talking generically about the energy which keeps souls in illusion so here Yogamaya so the usage Yogamaya in the Bhagavad Gita is in a different analytical framework from the usage Yogamaya in Gaudiya Vishnu philosophy and so here Yogamaya does not refer to the particular energy of Krishna which is keeping the souls in which keeping pure devotees oblivious of Krishna’s divinity here it simply refers to the energy that makes souls forget Krishna thank you