Mayan Calender |
For the ancient Mayans, December 21, 2012 was
a huge celebration time for making it to the end of a whole cyclical moment of
cosmic shifting. For modern people entangled in their own Maya (Illusion) like
us, it gave us a chance to rejuvenate and start afresh. This article is
inviting us to just do that by acknowledging the end of Maya from our life.
Every morning is the Big Bang and every
night is a doomsday. Every birth is the beginning of a calendar while every death is
end of one. This approach is also known as Nitya Pralaya (regular doomsday)
which is defined as sleep or death.
December 21, 2012 signified much more than Nitya
Pralaya and indicated something very similar to Atyantik Pralaya, also termed
as Moksha, salvation by a soul to be free from all illusions of life.
Although Earth is moving into a new realm of
consciousness since 21 December 2012, doomsday for every individual will be
happening on different time determined by the spiritual realization of each
soul and its self determination and realization to be free. This article is to
prepare us for taking the opportunity for salvation of our soul by ending our
Maya from our respective lives - Now.
The word origin of māyā is derived
from Sanskrit roots ma meaning "not" and ya meaning
"that". To prevent the mind from attaching itself to its own
perspective about reality as the complete truth, term MaYa is used to indicate
that truth is "Not that." End of Maya is not end of illusions of
mind.
Ending our Maya simply means getting out from our habit of
clinging on to our perspective as the truth. As we
end our attachment with our judgements about the truth, we also free ourselves,
our relations and people in our life from our expectations, prejudices, allegations,
blame games, inferiority or superiority complexes, guilt and negativities.
Maya as "illusion" is centered on the fact that we do not
experience the environment itself but rather a projection of it, created by
us. When we attach our mind to this
illusion as the truth, we get into the vicious cycle of expectations and
judgements taking us away from truth, life, love & abundance.
It is time to end our Maya in order to regain the original
freedom of our soul. For freedom to be and see the
facts as it is (including witnessing our Maya as our Maya and not as the truth)
is the first, of all Soul Rights (similar to Human Rights) of every soul.
Maya can be
categorized into two types Positive and Negative. Of partial reality, it
indicates rosy and thorny pictures respectively. This is irrespective of actual
reality. As Maya hides actual reality with its partial pictures, it requires to
be ended whether it is positive or negative. This is crucial so that we can
see, understand, appreciate and enrich our actual lives in its true form and to
its best in actual reality.
Scriptures
give symbolic examples of both negative and positive Maya very effectively.
Symbolic example of negative Maya is when we fear rope kept in darkness because
we have illusion about the rope that it is a snake.
In today’s life, this can be related to our
irrational fears and phobias. This also indicates times when we did not make
new friends because we had illusion about them that they will harm us. Symbolic example of positive Maya is when we
feel sure that lion will not eat us because we are vegetarians. In today’s life
it can be related to times when we trusted our dreams and others blindly
without observing their nature, habits and character. This also indicate times
when we thought that certain friends will help us just because we have helped
them or will not cheat us just because we have not done so.
It is rare that our Maya (our illusions our judgements) matches
with the actual truth. Even when it does match,
it matches only partially and that too for some time, but it is for sure not
likely to match fully or for long. This is because truth is highly
comprehensive & dynamic. Truth is changing so many variables every moment
whereas judgements are getting formed based on consideration of limited
variables and that too over a period of time. It is a matter of time when
judgements fail to pace up with the free flowing pace of dynamic truth / life /
reality.
Inevitably in all cases whether
we like it or not, actual reality shows up sooner or later to be different than
what was judged / predicted / expected by us. That is when we are being victim
of our own Maya and yet we feel we are being victimized / ditched / shocked /
surprised by others who did not behave the way We thought they would.
Well,
let us note that whether positive or negative, our Maya is Our Maya. And the
world is not, need not, should not and will not perform accordingly. Everyone
is free and everyone will act as per their dynamic nature & their ever
changing free will. This will be so irrespective of what illusions we chose to
cling on to about them / our relationship with them. The sooner we realize this, sooner we will end our own Maya from our
lives.
Only
way we can end this Maya is through our insight into our mental & spiritual
journey, identifying the illusions developed or collected at each stage
of the journey, making conscious choice with commitment to release the bondage
with the illusions and consistent practice to do so.
We have grown our Maya in the garden of our lives throughout the
life, and to end it permanently we need to uproot it from every stage / phase /
memory of our lives. To end Maya in our lives we
need to understand how and when it started in our lives. Well, it started right
from the 9 months before birth. It is these 'nine months' decisive period when we as unborn baby
could not only listen & feel but also responded in our own way. 60% of
brain development occurred in intrauterine period. We started imbibing Maya
from the world right from this stage.
Among Parent-to-child transmission of
infectious diseases the most serious, most common and least discussed disease
and that is the transmission of Maya –
infection passed on at spiritual level from parent to child. Definition of
Reproductive Justice includes mental,
spiritual, and social well-being of our parents enabling them to make
healthy decisions for selves in all areas of lives. Though unintentionally,
this justice do get delayed if not denied in most cases.
Our parents own
mental, spiritual & social health directly determines their preparedness to
develop us as divine child free from Maya. Transmission
of Maya multiplies when the Pregnancy is less by choice & more by chance and that too by
parents who are yet to be mentally, socially & spiritually free of
illusions. These illusions are in the form of their own clinging to their own judgements,
prejudices and expectations from life as the truth.
At this stage we are very open to negative
Maya of our parents (their negative judgements about self, each other and life
in general). Most commonly seen negative Maya especially among first time
mothers include inferiority complex, insecurities & feeling of
helplessness. Most commonly seen negative Maya especially among first time
fathers include superiority complex, aversion to commitment & sense of
burden of responsibility. Though unintentionally, parents do pass on their negative
Maya to us before our birth.
This Maya passed on from parents can be seen in the form of our
personality & fears in our early years of childhood. It is
seen very vividly in the eldest child in the family. With next child, intensity
of the Maya passed on from parents to child reduces due to increasing maturity
of parents as individual and with their greater experience and understanding of
role as parents. More or less, positive or negative, every child does get Maya
from parents.
Peak
time when we circum to positive Maya, Rosy Picture of real World, is during our
adolescence our Teen age. Most common positive Maya in this age
include having unrealistically positive ideas about our preferred career
choices, taking life & future challenges as too easy, interpreting flattery
or curiosity as love etc. resulting in inappropriate choices with respect to
education, careers, friends & love.
Does our Maya end with end of Maya imbibed
during childhood or adolescence? No, in adulthood we do have new set of Mayas
that we need to be aware of in order to end it. We are challenged with new set
of Mayas when we get married.
Maya post marriage can be positive Maya based on our own feelings about the spouse instigating our
blind faith and total emotional dependence on spouse. This faith is called our
Maya as it is irrespective of actual understanding about the spouse, his or her
habits, character in crisis and ever changing nature.
Maya post marriage can also be negative Maya based on our own ego & insecurities based on our individual
inferiority or superiority complex as spouse. This can start instigating our
doubting nature against spouse, increasing level of demands and dominance,
deepening levels of blames and allegations, worsening intensity of disrespect
and damages. This too is our own Maya as it is operating irrespective of the
actual potential, performance and personality of the spouse.
We all have observed so many marriages and
individuals deteriorate due to too much of one sided positive or negative Maya.
Most tragic examples are when both spouses suffer from opposite types of Mayas
complementing each other’s Maya till the relationship & the individuals are
broken apart. Typical example can be of a wife suffering with positive Maya
full of surrender, sentimentalism & blind faith, tolerating exploitation by
the husband who himself is suffering from negative Maya full of doubt,
insensitivity, allegations and violence.
Let us free the spouse within us & with us
from the illusions he / she felt and faced as the truth about each other.
Another very important relation where we need to end Maya is in
our professional relationships with people from same profession. This is because intentionally or not, they do play significant
role in shaping our professional identity in our own eyes. Positive Maya may
put one into unrealistic partnership with undue dependence of one on another.
Negative Maya may put one into destructive exercise of inappropriate criticism,
disrespectful conduct, leg pulling, professional espionage & sabotage.
Let us free the professional within us &
around us from the illusions he / she felt and faced as the truth about each
other.
If you are a parent, then you have real opportunity to
experience futility of our Maya. Our children
do act as our eye openers PROVIDED we can observe them impartially and with
open mind. Our positive Maya can make us over pampering / over protective /
over interfering / over expecting parent. Our negative Maya can make us over
criticizing / over demanding / over nagging parent. In either case it affect
the child, the relation and the parent without helping the situation in hand.
Let us free the parent within us & the
children around us from the illusions we felt and faced as the truth about each
other.
Whatever may be our age and stage of life, it is time to be free
of both types of Maya. Let this freedom be applied to all our relations with people, things and events of past,
present & future. This is essential to be able to realize the truth as it
is. This is critical to understand difference between actual reality and our
illusions about the same. One of the starkest ways of reminding importance of
ending our Maya is in reminding how we underwent mental / social / spiritual
rape by self & others thanks to our Maya.
As we perform our duty to free ourselves from our Maya first, we
also regain our ability to freely exercise our right of freedom from others
Maya regarding us. And it is only then that we enable
ourselves to live life as magnificently as it is meant to be with purposeful
originality, divinity, dignity & grace for self & others.
The way
in which we can end our Maya is by acknowledging us as the creator of our own
Maya and accepting others for being what they were naturally. This
requires objective review of all involved in our past starting with self. It
also requires learning from the past choices made and consequences faced under
the illusion by us. Easy to say than done but it is much easier to do rather than continuing the blame game,
guilt or shame punishing us for not seeing in darkness in past even after it
has come to light at present.
This realization is helping us to take the
ownership for our Maya created in our life till date. It is helping us to
discover these illusions as our creation our choice and our collection of
thoughts. This discovery is empowering
us to free ourselves from the external locus of control, sense of helplessness
and vulnerability perceived in front of other people / relations /
situations in past.
Yes today is the end of Maya. So what? It
is Not the end of the world. Rather it is the beginning of life. We have been
running behind the imaginary light of our own Maya. Now it’s no more. What
Next? It’s our time now to become a
beacon of light ourselves and to bring others into light of their own free
spirit.
Now that we have ended our Maya It is now
that this self is a complete adult. A
complete adult is defined as the one who is well aware of one’s own capacity to
create new illusions. And has the
ability Not to get attached with the illusions as the truth while deciding how
to respond to life in present. It is now
that we respond to life as it is by being fully present in present.
As end of our Maya from past is achieved
and rebirth of Maya in present is prevented, let us celebrate, Atyantik
Pralaya, our Moksha, every day of every calendar because for the free spirit every moment is a festival of life. And our spirits
are free! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Always with you in the journey of ending negative Maya
Shilpa Savant Inamdar