Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on November 10, 2013.

Swami Bhaskarananda explains the Vedantic idea of maya by first examining how we ordinarily judge what is real. While sense perception leads us to treat the world as unquestionably real, he notes that the senses can mislead, as in a mirage, and introduces a traditional criterion: the real is that which is changeless and eternal. Using the familiar movement through waking, dream, and dreamless sleep, he shows how a dream appears real while it lasts, yet is later dismissed because it is impermanent and dependent on the mind’s temporary ignorance of waking experience. From this, he raises the question of whether the waking world may also be a kind of appearance.

Turning to creation, he contrasts modern scientific uncertainty about the “singularity” of the Big Bang with Vedic reflection, especially the creation hymn’s suggestion that even the Creator may not “know” creation in an ultimate sense. In Advaita Vedanta, maya is described as a power of magic or illusion: from the standpoint of transcendental reality, the world has no independent existence, yet to embodied consciousness it appears compellingly real. He concludes by addressing the classic definition of maya as “inexplicable”—neither simply existent nor nonexistent—ending with the implication that as knowledge of the Self dawns, maya comes to an end for the seeker.