Gopal K. Gupta - Māyā in the Bhāgavata Purāṇa: Human Suffering and Divine Play

Some of Indias most sacred traditions view this phenomenal world in which we live as an enchanting work of art created by the divine: a veritable canvas on which the divine paints. Even though Gods brush strokes are of superlative beauty, power and excellence, divinity himself declares in the great conversation of the Bhagavad Gt, that what appears on this canvas is a mere reflection, a metynymic manifestation, of his supreme being. Nevertheless, souls fall blindly in love with the captivating allure of this world that we live in. This book dedicates itself to that divine power of enchantment known as my: the wonderfully complex Hindu concept responsible for casting blinding love spells over soulsboth in this worldly realm, as well as in the divine realm.

The well-known, western expression, Love is blindwhich appears in at least three Shakespearian playspresents falling in love negatively, as something that obscures valuable aspects of Reality, and ultimately deprives one of love itself. On the other hand, certain traditions coming out of sacred Indiaduring the same century Shakespeare would have been thriving as a playwrightilluminate how blind-love can also play with Reality itself, in ways that unite souls and divinity together in a perfect love. Dr. Guptas book explores this juxtaposition by unraveling the finely nuanced definitions for the word my, which can mean many things, and have many senses, as we find, for example, in the translation illusion. Even the English etymology points to both the positive and negative senses, derived from the Latin, illudere, to play. Thus, my plays with our consciousness, altering our perceptions of Reality in both painful and pleasurable ways, ultimately in the interest of manifesting love.

The concept of my is predicated on the understanding that there is a metonymic character in the theistic interwovenness as the very ontological fabric of Reality: every part of existence is part of a greater part of existence such that a souls likelihood to experience separateness from, or connectedness to the divine and its all-embracing love restsat least initiallyon the necessary bedrock of free will, or freedom of choice. Thus, behind the concept of my, we find a metaphysics of love, where the soul is free to choose to be united with God and everything connected to the divine, or relate to Gods creation as if it had no connection to its creator. There is no true love without free will, and the power that facilitates this human choice is my. And yet, ironically, falling in love feels involuntary, as we become entirely consumed by a state of emotional overwhelm.

This bipartite state of emotional overwhelm is the thread that runs through the intricacies of the concept of my examined in this book. Speaking far beyond the borders of sacred India to the whole of humanity, this essential universal experience of feeling overwhelmed by a power greater than useither in a positive or negative manneraptly characterizes the Hindu concept of my, helping us understand its far reaching influence across divine and phenomenal worlds. It is no coincidence then that we find Arjuna completely overwhelmed at the start of the great work of the Bhagavad Gt. Here, Arjuna experiences the negative aspect of feeling overwhelmed by my, representing the many ways in which the human condition lends itself to feeling personally, socially, politically, and generally incapacitated. As such, worldly conflict veritably blinds Arjuna to the fact that he is in the presence of the divine, Lord Krishna. In thus mistaking his experience as something separate from the divineexisting apart from the interconnectedness of all RealityArjuna is deprived of love.

As occurred with Arjuna, my has the power to overwhelm us, to cause us to forget who we truly are, obscure our connection with the divine, and make us lose awareness of our inseparability from all Reality, minimizing our chances of participating in perfect love. On the other hand, my is also the powerthe goddess shaktithat can point us in the direction of perfect love, if we let her. The goddess, after all, facilitates more intimate connections with God. We see this dramatically portrayed when Arjuna exercises great volition and shifts his focus to Lord Krishna, reaching out to him for help. Not only is Arjunas spirit lifted and his vision of Krishna restored, but he then also becomes overwhelmed by Krishnas divine manifestation! In this situation, my participates in the revealing and concealing of Gods grandeur and majestyhis many portraitsto help pave the road to intimacy with the divine.