Daily Meditation: Monday, January 12, 2004

Maya - the sage avoids traps

01/12/2004

Appearances are often misleading: beauty can hide ugliness, wealth can hide poverty, and strength can hide weakness. The Hindu philosophy calls this deceptive appearance ‘maya', or illusion. The wise man is one who succeeds in piercing the veil of appearances to discover reality, and, once he has done so, endeavours to analyse his yearnings lucidly in the light of this reality. And often, when he understands the consequences that await him, he abandons his ambitions, and the pursuit of fortune, glory and pleasure. As long as we do not see, as long as we do not understand what ‘maya' is, we set out blindly, believing that we will find happiness and success, and instead we fall into traps. But once we see things in their true light, we become more careful; and we can then go forward, confident that we will not go astray.