Question:
Guruji, can you please define these three terms; Avidya, Ajnana and Maya?
Sri Prabhuji: The first one is called Maya. Maya is ‘yaama ithi maya’. What is not there appears to be so. That is called Maya. What is not real appears to be there and that is called Maya. For example, in desert, there is no water but mirage appears as if it is the water. That is Maya. So the Maya is the one which appears, Maya is the power of Parabrahma. Just like the fire has the burning capability, Parabrahma has the capability of Maya. It is not separate from Parabrahma; it is a part of Parabrahma’s capability. So in Para Brahma the whole universe appears. The universe appears in Para Brahma and that is called Maya.
Now, is the appearance real? It appears to be real. We can feel everything, the sky, water, air etc everything appear to be real. But is it permanent? No. It disappears, it is momentary. In a sense, Maya is appearance in consciousness which is temporary in nature. Appears and disappears, that is why it is called ‘Mithya’. It is not permanent, it is temporary in appearance. In a common man’s language if we have to tell, Maya is a dream of Para Brahma. Parabrahma or Narayana, his dream is called Maya. In dream of Parabrahma, universe appears, not just one universe, but many universes appear. Ok, so that is called Maya. It is the dream of Parabrahma. In the dream, the Parabrahma becomes the witness of each being created. Each of the living being is being witnessed by Parabrahma as Sakshi. So Parabrahma himself is out of creation, he is not in creation, nothing has happened to Parabrahma. So for taking the creation, he becomes Ishwara, the lord of creation. And Ishwara becomes the witness in each living being. He becomes the Sakshi. And the witness sees the drama which is unfolding in each living being. Each living being goes through a drama, because of its qualities of nature sattva, rajo and tamo guna. Because of the quality of nature, each living being behaves in a certain way. Now the sakshi identifies with that behaviour. It is like in the dream you momentarily forget who you are and start identifying with the dream character. So that is what is life and that momentary forgetfulness of the self and identifying with something else is called Avidya. Forgetfulness of self is Avidya.
Ajnana is not having the knowledge of the self. Avidya is forgetfulness of the Self and identifying with something else and Ajnana is not having the jnana from primary source or secondary source. Not knowing about Self is Ajnana. So Maya is dream of Bhagavan, Avidya is a dream of you, Ajnana is not only you have a dream, you do not have the knowledge of the Self to wake up from the dream.
Student: Avidya is the starting point?
Sri Prabhuji: Avidya is the starting point. Ajnana is the continuation. Now, in Avidya, it is your individual dream, you will start dreaming that I am the body, I am the mind and I am the intellect. So, when you are dreaming, you will become a dream girl for somebody and the dream girl will have a dream boy. Both of them enter into a dream marriage and a dream life, dream children and everything in the dream starts. So you get trapped in the dreams of so many people. Everybody has a part in your dream or you are a part of everybody else’s dream. Everybody becomes dream characters.
Student: Is Sadguru also a part of the dream?
Sri Prabhuji: Sadguru is not dream, but Sadguru is part of your dream. Sadguru is the one who has come out of the dream. Sadguru has no dreams but Sadguru is a part of your dreams. Adi Shankara gives an example of the Sadguru like this: “There is an elephant which is sleeping. Suddenly the elephant dreams that the tiger is chasing it. It wakes up from the dream. Similarly in your dream called life, a Sadguru comes and you get terrified and then you wake up from the dream and you realize that even Sadguru was also a part of the dream Tiger. Anyways you had so many dreams, so one more dream, a nice dream. Actually, it is a nightmare, Sadguru is a nightmare. He says that whatever you have learnt so far is foolishness. So it is a nightmare. All my life I have accumulated so many things, all is gone and everything is useless.