Know What is Reality

DHRUVA BHARGAVA





What we call maya is the way we experience the world. Our experience of the outer reality or world is not the experience of the world as it is. Rather, we experience the appearance or projection of the outer world within. So, if all we experience is mere projection, then, what lies beyond the veil of projection? Our innate capacity to perceive the external world enables us to experience the world in the form of projection.Through perception, the world is projected within which it is experienced. But the projection may not represent the complete picture of the world as it transpires through sensory and cognitive modalities having their own limitations. So, the appearance of the world too suffers limitations and our conclusions or the world's image remains incomplete.
Complications arise when we confuse projection with reality .This becomes the source of false knowledge, or avidya. Secondly , intense identification with the projection reinforces our sense of self that consolidates ego, another form of projection. Thirdly , we zealously defend the projection or impose the same on others, leading to ego clash. So, it is our inability to distinguish between appearance of reality and reality as two distinct phenomena.
Our resulting presumptions of the world are, thus, erroneously derived from the false knowledge of the world that create an endless cycle of confusion and suffering. We need to overcome this confusion with right knowledge. A mirage by itself is not maya but confusing it for the real thing is maya.