Illusion

The distinction between knowledge and ignorance starts with the hymns of the RigVeda, where knowledge means being conscious of the Truth and what is right, and ignorance is being unconscious of the Truth and what is right, opposing it and creating false or negative effects.

This world is an illusion of colors and sounds, a false display created by the tricks of Maya, the mind, and the senses.

As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an embryo is enveloped by the womb — so is this (knowledge) covered by that (desire).

As moths fly full of speed into a blazing flame to their own destruction, so too do these worlds plunge into your mouths with great force, rushing to annihilation.

Your true nature is pure existence, consciousness, and bliss. The physical body is just an illusion.

The wise, with the help of the Vedas and knowledge, having ascertained that the visible universe is an illusion, instantly realizes the Supreme Spirit as the sole existing independent essence.

It is the self-luminous Atman that, through the power of its own maya, imagines all the objects that the subject experiences, both within and outside, by itself and within itself.

If something does not exist at the beginning or the end, it must not exist in the present. The things we see are like illusions, yet they are considered real.

Those who live and move within the realm of ignorance stumble and are battered, deluded, like the blind being led by someone who is also blind.

When the mind is gone, everything disappears. The mind's activity creates all appearances. Due to ignorance or illusion in the mind, you perceive objects and trees as separate and real.

What will a person gain by knowing many scriptures? The most important thing is to know how to navigate the world. God alone is real, and everything else is an illusion.

If the devotee practices spiritual discipline to some extent, the guru clarifies everything for them. The disciple then understands the reality and unreality of things. Only God is real; the world is an illusion.

Saint Kabir says: Brother, why fear Maya? One who has realized the Truth can overcome it.

The metres, sacrifices, rituals, vows, the past, the future, whatever the Vedas declare — the magician creates all this universe, and another is held in it by maya.

This very one is the Self — it wanders from body to body as though led captive, as though overwhelmed by the fruits of bright and dark deeds. Yet because it is unmanifest, subtle, invisible, ungrasped, and free of all sense of mine-ness, it is without fixed station; it is not the doer, yet it appears to be the doer.

Some say time, others nature, necessity, chance, the elements, or the primal person as the cause. Yet none of these can be the ultimate ground — the soul itself is not independent, being subject to the duality of pleasure and pain.

This universe that we perceive is said to be the result of ignorance or delusion.

If merely pretending to be spiritual can bring about such spiritual awakening, one can only imagine the impact of genuine spiritual practice. In that state, one will undoubtedly realize what is real and what is not. Only God is real, while the world is an illusion.

Into blind darkness enter those who worship the unmanifest alone. Into still deeper darkness, as if, go those who are absorbed solely in the manifest.

Truth is its foundation, and this truth is not just intellectual accuracy, but the ultimate human state of true being, consciousness, knowledge, and actions, which is the opposite of the falsehood of egoism and ignorance.