SWAMI VIVEKANANDA: on Maya
“The world has no existence – what does this statement means?
It means that it has no absolute existence.
It exists only in relation to my mind and to the mind of everyone else.
We see this world with the five senses but if we had another sense,
we would see in it something more.
If we had yet another sense, it would appear as something different.
It has therefore, no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence.
Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have to work in and through it.
It is a mixture of existence and non-existence.
We find that Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the world;
it is simply a statement of facts as they exists, that the very basis of our beings is a contradiction, that everywhere we have to move through this tremendous contradiction, that there is good and there is also evil, wherever there is life, death must follow as its shadow, and everyone who smiles will have to weep and vice-versa....”
“The world has no existence – what does this statement means?
It means that it has no absolute existence.
It exists only in relation to my mind and to the mind of everyone else.
We see this world with the five senses but if we had another sense,
we would see in it something more.
If we had yet another sense, it would appear as something different.
It has therefore, no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence.
Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have to work in and through it.
It is a mixture of existence and non-existence.
We find that Maya is not a theory for the explanation of the world;
it is simply a statement of facts as they exists, that the very basis of our beings is a contradiction, that everywhere we have to move through this tremendous contradiction, that there is good and there is also evil, wherever there is life, death must follow as its shadow, and everyone who smiles will have to weep and vice-versa....”
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