The Bhagavadgita on Sensory Maya

by Jayaram V

Summary:The mind and senses form nature's primary instruments for creating experiential delusion in embodied beings. Ten organs of action and perception, joined with mental processing and five subtle sensory qualities, generate desire-fueled attachments to external objects. This craving leads consciousness astray from its essential nature. The Bhagavadgita teaches that shifting attention from surface manifestations toward their underlying divine source breaks the deceptive spell. True perception penetrates beyond sensory appearances to recognize the one manifesting power pervading all phenomena.

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The Bhagavadgita explains how delusion arises and how we may overcome it. Lord Krishna states that deluded people bind themselves to the cycle of births and deaths through desire-ridden actions because they lack discrimination (buddhi). They assume ownership and doership and fail to discern the presence of God amidst them. They indulge in actions that bring them misery and suffering. However, there is a ray of hope for everyone. With effort and through the practice of yoga, everyone can overcome their delusion and work for their liberation. To achieve a correct understanding of the mechanism of maya is vital. We discuss below how maya is deeply embedded in our consciousness, entwined with our lives, and influences our thinking and actions.

1. The senses

The senses are ten in number: five organs of action and five organs of perception. The mind is the eleventh. Apart from these, we can also mention the five subtle sensory experiences (tanmatras), which connect the senses to their objects, and are responsible for our feelings of attraction and aversion to the things we perceive. The five tanmatras are hearing, touching, seeing, tasting, and smelling. The ten sense organs, together with the mind and these subtle senses, are the main instruments through which Nature connects the jivas to the objective world and deludes them, subjecting them to desires and attachments to worldly objects and keeping them distracted from knowing themselves and their concealed reality. According to the Bhagavadgita, out of desire comes attachment, and out of attachment, a person becomes deluded by seeking things in order to satisfy their craving.

Even from our daily experiences, we know that the senses are not reliable sources of knowledge and truth. Their perceptions and actions are distorted by many obstacles, which modern psychology calls cognitive distortions. The world is not what it appears to be. The truths hidden beneath the surface of apparent reality reveal to us a different picture of the world in which we live. There is an invisible world, very much a part of the physical world, which we cannot see with our senses. We also lack a holistic vision that encompasses all. Things appear differently when we view them from different perspectives and consider them as aggregates of things. The Bhagavadgita, therefore, urges people to look beyond the appearance of things into the essential reality that pervades them and envelops them as their source and support. The same power manifests differently in different things. We should not only understand ‘That’ (Tat), which has this power, but also experience it within ourselves to become free from the world of illusion and duality. That manifesting power is God, the Supreme Lord of the universe. His manifestation is what we perceive with our senses and mistakenly consider it as the sum of all reality. This is the delusion we must overcome to be free. When we shift our attention from His manifestations to Himself and from the projections and modifications of our own minds to our inherent, essential nature, we become aware of the transcendental reality that exists beyond our minds and senses.

2. Loss of buddhi (discrimination)

When our intelligence is clouded, we cannot discern truth from falsehood. It is like looking at the world through an impure prism. When we pursue sense objects with deluded intelligence, we are easily drawn into the world by our senses, become involved with the world, and engage in desire-ridden actions that bind us. We ignore the profound truths that are not immediately perceptible, thereby missing the central purpose of our lives, which is achieving liberation with righteous conduct. Deluded by the senses, the mind, and intelligence, we do not know the truth from falsehood. We accept the visible world as true, ignoring the concealed source that is responsible for it or the transcendental reality that exists beyond the visible reality. When we do not know who we really are, we accept our physical identities as the totality of our existence and make decisions from a very narrow perspective, ignoring the possibilities of our existence beyond life and death and the consequences of our actions upon our future lives. The senses, as we have discussed before, contribute to these deluded notions that we entertain in our minds about our existence and ourselves. Those who depend upon them solely for direction and guidance cannot go beyond the visible and perceptible world and experience the reality that exists in the stillness of their tranquil minds. Our delusion results in ignorance or the loss of knowledge and wisdom to discern reality from unreality, truth from untruth, the divine from the demonic, and right actions from wrong actions. Out of the ignorance thus born, embodied souls (jivas) indulge in wrong actions and become bound to the mortal world. When we do not have the right knowledge, we make wrong choices, perform wrong actions, and suffer from consequences. When we do not know how our suffering arises from our desire-ridden actions and their consequences because of the gunas and the impurities they induce, and do not practice restraint or withdrawal, we become bound to them. However, through yoga, we can cleanse our consciousness and open ourselves to the transcendental truths. By becoming aware of the need for self-transformation and cultivating purity, we can establish our minds in equanimity, stability, and sameness towards all. We realize the true meaning of renunciation and learn to perform actions without seeking their fruit. The study of the Bhagavadgita helps us greatly to overcome our delusions and know our identities. Its study will help us discern truths concerning God and ourselves. With our intellect refined by its knowledge, we will overcome our delusions and work for our liberation.

3. Desires and attachments

Under the influence of the gunas, which are the instruments of Maya, the deluded ones are always attached to the world and its objects. They are attracted to not only worldly things but also their egoistic personalities, memories, thoughts, opinions, and relationships. Those attachments arising from attraction and aversion can be positive or negative, and both bind them to the world. Memories pursue them, time haunts them, and thoughts possess them as they are driven by desires to seek things and fulfill themselves. Having become attached to the world and conditioned by memory and accumulated knowledge, they develop many negative qualities such as envy, selfishness, pride, fear, greed, anger, malice, caprice, cruelty, callousness, lust, and intense desire for success and personal advancement. They view life as a battleground in which they must always win and reach their goals at any cost. For them, failure and weakness are not options. Attracted to pleasures, repelled by pain and adversity, fearful of loss and hopeful of gain, unable to resist the lures and temptations of the world, although aware at times that all is vain in the end, they plod on, striving and struggling as if death would never touch them. The state of liberation is indeed the state of freedom from desires and attachment. The yogi who transcends desires, wants, and needs is a free person. He is liberated even if he does not attain oneness with the Self. He becomes pure, even if he does not practice yoga or devotion.

4. Sense of duality and multiplicity

Both the individual Self and the Supreme Self are eternally independent, whereas beings (jivas) are dependent entities. Even when the Self is in association with Nature, it remains independent. The beings exist in relationship with things and beings, whereas the Self exists by itself. The relationships they form result in the delusion of duality and the conflicting experiences of union and separation from things, which in turn lead to many emotional disturbances and mental afflictions. We are drawn to objects because we consider them separate and distinct. We seek them because we develop an attachment to them through our gunas and senses. This duality leads to desire-ridden actions and our bondage to earthly life. When we depend upon our senses, we perceive duality and diversity and experience attraction and aversion to the pairs of opposites. This leads to the delusion of ownership and doership and the compulsion to perform desire-ridden actions and perpetuate our individuality and beingness.

5. Transience, instability, and destructibility

The phenomenal world in which we live and which we call samsara is subject to modifications, impermanence, and destruction. It is driven by cause and effect, induced primarily by the gunas. Our physical personalities are part of this world and subject to the same qualities. We accept them as true because we cannot see the real Self that is hidden within us, which is eternal, immutable, and indestructible. Arjuna suffered from sorrow because he had the same delusion. He thought that he was a destructible being and that his actions would lead to the death and destruction of others. He did not consider death and destruction the modifications of Nature that are put in place to facilitate the soul’s journey upon earth. In the phenomenal world, because of the gunas, our physical selves overshadow our true selves. When we are established in them, we accept ourselves as limited beings subject to death and destruction. When we purify our minds and bodies, we realize our immortality and experience peace and stability. Our existence is not impermanent. The modifications are. Our impermanence is an outer aspect, a mere phenomenon, like a dream, which will vanish when we realize our true nature and become absorbed in it.

6. Ego and false identification

Just as Nature manifests an alternate reality in the universe of God, it manifests an alternate reality in the microcosm of each individual in the form of ego consciousness, whereby each being identifies itself with its name and form rather than its inner Self. The ego is an illusion, but we perpetuate it because we spend our lives protecting it and promoting it. It is the false center of our consciousness. It acts as the Knower of the Field, whereas the Self is the true Knower (Kshetrajna). It acts as the enjoyer of the perceptions arising in the field of consciousness, whereas the true enjoyer is again the Self. It also assumes ownership and doership, whereas the Self is the true owner and doer. These misconceptions induced by the ego lead to the jiva’s attachment, delusion, and karma.

The ego is responsible for our self-preservation instinct and our tendency to engage in actions to promote our interests or fulfill our desires, even if it means we have to compromise or ignore our spiritual progress and well-being. Left to itself, the ego will promote and perpetuate demonic qualities, whereby the jiva whom it represents does not know how to perform actions correctly with the right attitude, what constitutes righteous conduct, or how to practice it (16.7). As the Bhagavadgita states, a jiva, under its influence, develops a false sense of identity and thinks he is the lord, enjoyer, and the perfect one (16.14). Thinking thus, he engages in desire-ridden actions. In some cases, he engages in destructive and terrible actions, which lead to his spiritual downfall. The ego is both the cause and effect of delusion. It is responsible for ownership, doership, duality, corporeality, materiality, and bondage. It keeps the mind in a state of flux and prevents it from experiencing stability, equanimity, and self-absorption. Under its influence, the deluded ones offer sacrifices for name, wealth, or pride. As a result, the Lord casts them into sinful and demonic hells.

7. Incorrect relationship with God

Because of ignorance and delusion, mortal beings cannot perceive God even though He is omnipresent and hidden in every aspect of creation. Therefore, their knowledge of God remains largely incomplete and incorrect. This ignorance interferes with their ability to form meaningful relationships with God and worship Him with the right attitude. In the Bhagavadgita, Lord Krishna mentions four types of devotees who worship Him, namely men in distress, seekers of knowledge, seekers of material wealth, and men of wisdom. Of these four, He declares the last one the best. Apart from these, He also mentions others whose wisdom is carried away by desires and who worship other gods through sacrifices for the fulfillment of their desires. He also mentions those who worship Him as the Unmanifested or who consider Him as the unmanifest having manifestations (avyaktam vyaktam). He further adds that people develop these wrong notions about Him because of His divine power (yogamaya) and fail to recognize Him as the unborn and imperishable Supreme Self (7.24-25).

The knowledge we gain from the study of scriptures does not help us to experience Brahman’s absolute reality unless we develop corresponding inner purity that can bring us into direct contact with our inner Selves. Thus, most people, even after years of study and devotional services, remain largely ignorant of God and His manifestations. Even Arjuna, with his direct vision, saw but one aspect of God as Time (Kala). None can, therefore, comprehend God truthfully even after transcending their senses. They may understand Him, but in parts. They may enter His consciousness but cannot recollect the full extent of their experience since the distinction between the knower and the known is absent in transcendental states. As a result, our relationship with God remains largely personal. Ignorant people cannot truly realize the greatness of God. Even if they do, they cannot contain that experience in their limited consciousness. Only a few know Him, even at the time of their death, that He is the Lord of all gods (adhidaivam), Lord of the material universe (adhibhutam), and the Lord hidden in each living being (adhyatma).