Shloka 8:
icchāmātraṃ prabhoḥ sṛṣṭiriti sṛṣṭau viniścitāḥ
kālātprasūtiṃ bhūtānāṃ manyante kālacintakāḥ
Shloka 9:
bhogārthaṃ sṛṣṭirityanye krīḍārthamiti cāpare
devasyaiṣa svabhāvo’yamāptakāmasya kā spṛhā
Explanation:
There are many theories of creation. Every tells one thing. Scientists say big bang is the cause of creation. Then believers of God say that God created universe with his thought. He just decided and world came into picture. Some people say because of time. It is like the evolution theory. Because of time, the world came into picture. Then people say, God created this to enjoy or bhogārthaṃ. Then people say why should God enjoy? It is leela of God. Some people say creation is nature of God. Some people question, what is the motivation for God to create? If he is already happy, peaceful and blissful then why create this world and disturb somebody?
So, there are many theories like this. But Vedanta says that there is no creation at all. There is an appearance that is like creation. It is like a film being projected. It is like a microfilm has a picture and you put the light there and it gets projected. There is no creation. It is an appearance which is projected. If you switch off the light, then it goes back.
Similarly, when I wake up in the morning, the world appears and when I go to deep sleep, everything goes to a microform or a subtle form. It appears again which includes my body and the world. This cycle is repeated. Getting projected and going back to subtle form. There is no creation. It is just projection and disappearance. Projection and disappearance happening. When I say creation, there should be something new which should get projected. There is nothing new which comes into picture. It is getting projected from whatever is there in the memory form. It is getting projected and going back.
This is the understanding of Vedanta. In Vedanta, the world is unreal or Mithya. Why is all this important? It is because we are all searching of the truth. The truth alone gives us freedom. What is untruth and unreal is something we should understand first. We should understand this clearly. The world is unreal.
So, the mithya, the world getting projected. For this, earlier, they used to give an example of magician. The magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat. The rabbit was hidden there previously. It is not that he created a rabbit. Rabbit was hidden and he pulled it out. Similarly, the world was hidden in your deep sleep state and on waking up, it is pulled out. And when you go to deep sleep state again, it goes back. This is called Maya.
So, in Sanskrit, the magician is called Indra jala or Maya jala. Indra means sense organs. Indra Jala means he is creating a lot of illusions for your sense organs. In deep sleep state, the world has gone to microscopic form. It is there. In the waking state, it is projected. Like the magician, the rabbit was not there. He pulled it out from the hat and it appeared. He didn’t create the rabbit. The rabbit was hidden somewhere.
Pranams,
Prabhuji
References:
Mandukya Karika_T8(Shloka 8)_Eng(World is an Appearance)_08Dec2018