Is Maya polytheistic or monotheistic?

Somebody asked this question on www.ask.com. I wonder what he/she meant by it.

Theism by definition is a belief in God.

The prefix poly or mono depends on how many Gods you believe in.

Maya means illusions or ignorance.

So, is there any relation between theism and maya? I do not see any but if there is any, I am open to answers and opinion. Let's flag off a discussion on this topic.

Maya-2: The fight against lust

A key factor generating Maya or illusions is lust. Lust, for money, power, prestige and so on are a key factor in degradation of once powerful societies, and their eventual conquest and extermination by barbarians with little social values standing at the gate. They too are guided by lust, a lust for the riches and booty that a rich society can give.

But there is a difference. The barbarians have some sort of unity between them. They are united by their lust for the opponent's wealth. On the other hand, the opponent, the rich and powerful society has fights in between itself. So, it's house is divided.

Sounds familiar?

Sounds like current affairs?

It should. The same situation has played over and over, generations after generations, centuries after centuries, millenia after millenia. It seems that mankind can never permanently evolve beyond a particular stage. The end of times (good/bad) also seems to be a rule along with the ultimate truth in the world.

Avoiding lust is simple. We must be able to draw a line, between what we can achieve, how much to achieve so as to be able to live a comfortable life without damaging the self, or the fabric of the society. For if the lust to get wealth or power grows beyond a certain extent, it will start affecting the society. It starts coming in the line of duty, and when duty is neglected for one's greed, the system starts to fail.

Breach of duty doesn't happen all of a sudden. And so doesn't lust. It happens unknowingly. It starts with a trickle. Say, one day a policeman happens to spend his day's earnings from the police station on booze. He needs to give the same amount of money to his wife who was expecting to buy something that day. He's in a fix now. For once, he accepts a bribe from a person who breaks a rule and sets him free. The cop gets the money, gives it to his wife . Case closed.

That is if he feels guilty for what he has done. The chains of duty are sometimes very feeble on people. It involves sacrifice, selfless labor, doing that extra hour to ensure that something has been done correctly. In comparison, breaking the call of duty is so attractive and soothing for the mind. Once greed/lust has been tasted, it keeps growing until it devours the man as a whole. If this is replicated on a larger scale, the whole society is at stake.

A second place, apart from the specimen of corruption described above, where lust is particularly discerning is Indian politics. It is known by all that for far too long, politicians have indulged in the lust for the power. Coalition politics is a natural outcome of this lust. Parties with like ideologies but differing in matters of governance unite after the elections to form the government. In this, they let governing the nation on the backburner. Policy making becomes insanely difficult since the policy has to cater to all the members of the coalition. Time taken to form the policy also increases dramatically as a result. Moreover, ideologies of political parties that are not the interest of the majority populace of the nation are enforced into decision making only because that party has got some seats in the Lok Sabha. Another place where one finds lust in the 'largest democracy' is when we find regional parties mushrooming in states instead of having few large national political parties that rule the nation.

These regional parties are (IMO only) born when a national party doesn't give local candidates a preference over their loyalists. Again, lust for power and nepotism from the national party come into question over here. Now what happens is that the regional party might not have very vast resources compared to a national party with nation wide reach and a larger number of fund-raisers. So how do they set out getting votes? They then resort to caste based politics by propping up somebody from a majority caste of the region. Caste issues then triumph over public issues. Throw in religion based politics, quota demands, and voila! we get a lip smacking recipe for disaster.

These are the enemies within the Indian state that our nationalist minded folk have to root out. We might explore the solutions for the above impasse in another post.

As far as barbarians at the gate are concerned, India is safe only as they have their own troubles to tend to. The moment they convince each other to unite for the booty, for our resources, we'll be done.

Consider as well the following dialogue between Shri Krishna and Arjuna about solving the problems of lust. The focus is on controlling the senses, knowing that mind and intelligence are above the senses. I wish that no call of duty is averted just for the short term comfort of the senses. It would only bring long term disaster.

1)

Chapter 3:
३६
अर्जुन उवाचा
अथ केना प्रयुक्तो ’यम्
पापं करती पुरुषः
अनिच्चान्न अपि वर्स्नेया।
"Arjuna said: O descendant of Vrishni, by what is one impelled to sinful acts, even unwillingly, as if engaged by force?"

३७
श्री-भगवान उवाचा
कम ऐसा क्रोध ऐसा
रजो-गुना-समुद्भावः
महासनो महा-पाप्मा
विद्ध्य इनाम इह वैरिनाम।
"The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world।"

३८
धुमेनावृयते वह्निर
यथादार्सो मलेना का
यथोल्बेनाव्रतो गर्भास
तथा तेनेदम अव्र्तम ।
"As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust।"

३९
अव्र्तम जनानाम एतेना
ज्नानिनो नित्य-वैरिना
कम-रूपेण कौन्तेय
दुस्पुरेनानालेना का।
"Thus the wise living entity’s pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire।"

४०
इन्द्रियानी मनो बुद्धिर
अस्याधिस्थानाम उच्यते
एतैर विमोहयाटी ऐसा
जनानाम अव्र्त्य देहिनाम।
"The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him."

४१
तस्मात् त्वं इन्द्रियान्य आदौ
नियम्य भारतार्सभा
पाप्मानं प्रजाही ही इनाम
जनाना-विज्नना-नासनम।
"Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization।"

४२
इन्द्रियानी परानी अहुर
इन्द्रियेभ्याह परम मनः
मनसस तू पारा बुद्धिर
यो बुद्धेह परतास तू सह।
"The working senses are superior to dull matter; mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he [the soul] is even higher than the intelligence।"

४३
एवं बुद्धेह परम बुद्ध्वा
सम्स्ताभ्यात्मनाम आत्मना
जाही सत्रुम महा-बहो
कम-रूपम दुरासदम।
"Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence, O mighty-armed Arjuna, one should steady the mind by deliberate spiritual intelligence [Krishna consciousness] and thus—by spiritual strength—conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust."

Maya (It's Maya all around-2)

In the last post, I talked about how Maya can cloud the human mind. And one of the few ways to come out of Maya can be to create awareness among the people. And leaving the ambiguity of my previous posts, today I am going to talk only in the context of India.

On one matter the people of India seem to be relatively well united as compared to other matters. That the current condition of India is because of the continuing sack of the nation by the political elite. More than any other human population in the world, it is the political elite of India that has the ostrich syndrome, the temerity to hide the head in the sand, which it has been found recently, is not even done by ostriches. At best, it is a tactic by the bird to hide from the predators, but yet its head remains outside the sand and it will take flight upon seeing predators, often causing injuries by its powerful kicks which might even cause death.

Sorry for going OT for some time, but had to show that even the bird is better than our political elite and causes damage when provoked. In the context of India, it is needed that:

1) People are told that merely voting the government into power is not going to work. You have to be after the politicians till the time they do not retire from politics (which anyway happens only when they die). For this, they should be made aware of the 'Rights To Information' act of the government. As far as my understanding of this is concerned, the act is there to provide the people an answer of the government's policies regarding various matters, and our preference shoud be most importantly on matters like national security, education, employment and other public welfare.

2) People are made aware of their fundamental duties and rights. They should also be made aware of the structure of the government and its functioning. Rather than understanding that they just have to vote, they should be given a crash course in Civics to understand the structure of the government. After all, doesn't any worker, no matter what the skill level, know how to operate a machine? I bet that there are people out there who do not know how the government functions. Perhaps even I do not know it very well. If democracy is a government run by the people, for the people and of the people, they should also know how to operate it.

3) People should be made aware that voting, even by sheer impulses if not through intuition, is better than not voting at all. Politicians must be made aware that the only way that they are going to get elected and have power is to serve the people. I wonder, that inspite of the difficulties that India faces, why is there still not a 100% voting turnout? Or even in the mid nineties? Even in today's frustrated times, voting turnout is 60% or 70% and so on. Another worrying idea seems that some people who came up with ideas such as "Don't vote 09 campaign". Such defeatist initiatives should be ignored at the least, and stopped at the best by co-operation among the people.

4) Leaving the dogma of the Hindu/Jain/Buddhist/Zoroastrian/Jewish/Muslim/Christian caste system behind, whoever is in power needs to be told shamelessly that he/she/it has to serve the people like a kshatriya (a warrior). There is nothing to be shameful in it. It is simply impossible to lead the nation by being something else than a kshatriya. Leading the nation involves following the righteous path, doing what is necessary and not doing bits of everybody's will. A person must be ready to call someone's bluff and I do not see that happening in any other way then being bold, courageous and war-like, characteristics which are supposed to be found in a kshatriya.

Moreover, on occasions like today, people should force their supposed-to-be 'kshatriya' leaders to start aggressive posturing and actions, and make Pakistan face the retributions rather than to fold up on themselves. And now, there's also evidence implicating that nation in the Mumbai strikes. After all, as the great seer of the Bhagwada Gita says:

Chapter 2:
३२
यद्र्च्चाया कोपपन्नाम
स्वर्ग-द्वारं अपव्र्तम
सुखिनः क्षत्रियाः पर्थ
लभन्ते युद्धं इद्र्सम।
"O Partha, happy are the kshatriyas to whom such fighting opportunities come unsought, opening for them the doors of the heavenly planets."

३३
अथ सत त्वं इमं धर्म्यम
संग्रामं न करिश्यसी
ततः स्व-धर्मं किर्तिम का
हित्वा पापं अवप्स्यासी।
"If, however, you do not perform your religious duty of fighting, then you will certainly incur sins for neglecting your duties and thus lose your reputation as a fighter."

३४
अकिर्तिम कापी भूतनी
कथायिस्यन्ति ते ’व्यायाम
सम्भावितस्य काकिर्तिर
मरनद अतिरिच्यते।
"People will always speak of your infamy, and for a respectable person, dishonor is worse than death."

Dishonor seems to be the preference of India's leaders. And dishonor seems to be the preference of our people, over death, which is going to happen anyway when they elect such people to power or do not respond when such leaders are hoisted on to us from the powers beyond our reach. So, we end up getting both dishonor and death, while those responsible for the terror and carnage at the Taj that visited us get their supposed rewards in heaven for their 'martyrdom'.

"Splendid" is the only thing I can say of the current government's response to this provocation. The least we can do right now is to boot out the Congress and their allies in the next election so ruthlessly as to make an example before the other parties for them to understand what would happen of them when they do not follow the people's wishes.

Its maya all around.

Maya. Illusion. The very word we want to avoid, yet get trapped in. Maya arises from ignorance of the real world, and us believing what we are told to. The dictionary meaning of the word maya comes out as:

maya
n. Hinduism
1) The power of a god or demon to transform a concept into an element of the sensible world.
2) The transitory, manifold appearance of the sensible world, which obscures the undifferentiated spiritual reality from which it originates; the illusory appearance of the sensible world.

Sometimes I feel, that the whole world lives on Maya. Following are two kinds of maya I wanted to stress on relating to current events in the world:

(A). Maya is the opium, that lulls us into thinking that all is well, that we can handle this life very easily. Time passes, nothing happens for a while, and then.. Bang! one catastrophe comes by and we wake up from our sleep. We realize that our ways were wrong and we need to amend them. Finger-pointing takes place, heads roll, correction protocols are established, the problem is rectified, and things start working.

But will this be the last time a catastrophe happens? No.. for with times of peace, people's intellect is again lulled into thinking that all is well. Maya strikes his/her velvety arrow into people's heads, soothes them, relaxes them, tells them that that evil man/woman/disease/problem is gone and all is now well. But for how long? Nobody thinks about that.

(B). The bottom line is, that the 'maya' is caused by a false sense of safety and comfort that most (all?) people get into. But apart from the above, there is another kind of 'maya', the maya that arises from despair, the maya that takes the form of intense paranoia of the stranger. This maya arises when everything is going wrong, and we still don't know what is happening. It arises because mankind has an extraordinary urge to simplify things for himself. When we write numbers in decimals, we strike off the third one. At best we would be striking off the fourth or the fifth one. It ain't going any further for us. When we are adding one to a very great number, we might neglect one sometimes. Assumptions are also made in science to make things simpler, and better for the quirky human mind. And now when things start getting complex, he is in a twist, possible theories keep mounting. He can't get the solution, for he can't understand the problem without simplifying it. In this frenzy, knee-jerk reactions are bound to occur, as man starts knocking off things on a random basis. Enemies morph into friends, and friends into enemies.

For example, under normal circumstance, when there is a lack of evidence of a crime, we let go of the person, perhaps warn him of the consequences of trying it out again and so on. But there is a group of people, who are so mentally sick and tired of their own failure in their lives (or who indulge in this because they are paid for it.) that they would slur the system for it. The more such rabble is piled on the system, the more ineffective it becomes. Not directly, as professionalism of the professional remains intact no matter what is being said about him.. but in terms of trust. The above said people follow the apothegm of - "A lie repeated a thousand times becomes the truth." And as trust of the system corrodes, people grow more mistrustful of the institution, although there are only a few bad apples. Heck, even if there are more bad apples, loss of trust would mean that even if there is one good person, people will avoid the system and not engage it even if it is needed.

And then, when real catastrophe occurs, we have utter chaos. Now the people don't know whom to trust, where to hide their crown jewels. Whom to speak for, whom to speak against? They are lost.. until there come a time when they start reforming the system on their own, trying to take on the enemy, both within and outside, by themselves instead of cribbing about both at the same time.

Can you recognise the two places in (A) and (B)? (A) is the rest of the world, that maya is the 'normal' maya, that which may arise from success. (B) are places like India, this maya is of despair, where the government is of the mob, looting people of opportunities along with money, and in return, giving nothing. The 'real catastrophe' that I am talking about in the last para of (B) is the recent attack on Mumbai.

Besides, here are some of my observations of what miscellaneous illusions the people of the world are in today:

1) The government of the country really really cares for them and will go out of its way to support the people, without there being any pressure on them out of pure nationalistic spirit.

2) That by not going out to vote for a candidate, they are showing their resentment against the system.

3) That by going out to vote, they have finished their responsibility and can go around their daily lives with heads held high and strutting their stuff.

4) That by being good, ill - fate will not befall them.

5) That appeasing violent rageboys, they will solve the problem.

6) That the righteous always deserve to win, with no thought of what kind of tactics are needed.
etc.. etc..

A few choicest quotes from the BG on maya and its effects.

Chapter 14:
५

सत्त्वं राजस तम इती
गुनाह प्रकृति-संभवः
निबध्नन्ति महा-बहो
देहे देहिनम् अव्ययम

"Material nature consists of three modes—goodness, passion and ignorance. When the eternal living entity comes in contact with nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna, he becomes conditioned by these modes."

८

तामस त्व अज्नना-जम विद्धि
मोहनं सर्व-देहिनम्
प्रमादालस्य-निद्रभिस
तन निबध्नती भरता

"O son of Bharata, know that the mode of darkness, born of ignorance, is the delusion of all embodied living entities. The results of this mode are madness, indolence and sleep, which bind the conditioned soul."

This is how maya was defined by the great Seer of the Bhagwada Gita.

So, how do we solve maya? By definition, it comes by ignorance. And the cure thus lies in removing ignorance. Spread of knowledge, a clear demarcation of how much we can tolerate, and rising up ourselves to correct things on our own if our legal appointees are not upto the task are but a few steps. Consider the 11th from the same chapter.

११

सर्व-द्वारेसू देहे ’समं
प्रकासा उपजायते
जनानाम यदा तदा विद्याद
विव्र्द्धाम सत्त्वं इत्य उत।

"The manifestations of the mode of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of the body are illuminated by knowledge."

And we should not wait for any auspicious occasion to start our plans. The time is right here, right now. As has been repeated in the Gita, that all has been decided by the Almighty already, we just need to get up and be his tool.