Mandukya Upanishad

With an Advaita Commentary from our Understanding

by Kenneth Jaques | 31,733 words

The Mandukya Upanishad is a short, just twelve verses, description of the material manifestation and the eventual return to unmanifest form of the Universe....

Verse 19

19. Atman is imagined to be Prana   (life)  etc.  and these innumerable entities.  This is the Maya of that shining one,  Atman,  by which he himself has been deluded.
"Atman is imagined to be Prana   (life)  etc.  and these innumerable entities."

Due to Maya,  life and the breath or energy of life are felt and claimed by each individual as a  Vital Force.  They assume they themselves breath,  they do not yet see that they are being breathed,  that is,  they are experiencing the consciousness of breathing.
the deluded limited consciousness senses the presence of the Divine,  but being only dimly seen this divinity is assumed as being his own either through gift or reward.  This delusion of individuality assumes that his own being is a self contained,  self motivated,  self defining,  self supporting entity that is born into existence.  All the time it is the Self,  who is supporting and enabling this play,  but also remaining the observer of the play and of the delusion.

"This is the Maya of that shining one,  Atman,  by which he himself has been deluded."

This believing that ones worldly experience of entities being separate to ones own life experience is due to Maya.
Maya is the experience,  of Absolute Consciousness  ("that shining one"),  of many individual consciousnesses,  each consciousness being unaware,  as it were,  through its own forgetting,  of its true identity as the Absolute shining with all knowledge.

Like what you read? Consider supporting this website: