माया! (Maya) This word has fascinated my little world when I encountered it first during my childhood. It was some mythological serial on the DorDarshan (the only option available that time) someone voiced this statement सब माया है. Without realizing the meaning of the word I enjoyed the word Maya.
My First Teacher, My Mother, keeps deep interest in Hindu mythology. So she often narrated us (My Sisters & Me) religious stories to pass good messages in life. And whenever she talked about Lord Krishna, this Maya word reappeared very frequently. I like the word, but I wondered what the word actually mean. So I asked my mother its meaning and she explained it to me with loads of example. What I understood was that there is something worldly and something that is beyond that. But I did not get the essence of it. Finally I was told that I'll understand it with time. Fine! Though I didn't like this idea, but I accepted.
Another notable instance which I could remember was in school, in Hindi class. I requested my teacher if she could help me understand that word. Her effort could manage just a liner "Maya means Money". She chose the easiest possible explanation and the closing note was such that I couldn't dare say that I wanted to know more on that word. Phew! T for teacher or T for Terror?
The next encounter with this word was when I heard about the movie "Maya Memsab". The name intrigued me but my Mother refused to allow me to its show saying movie is not good. Even I heard that the movie was a flop, but there was something about the movie that brought some strange expression amongst those who were so called adult that time. I persisted to watch the movie; to this my Mother said movie is indecent and gave her finishing statement as Maya bhi koi Naam hai. So now Maya is bad.
I was so confused. The understanding of word has brought me three answers all mutually exclusive in the first look. Maya is some how related to Worldly & Non Worldly stuff, it stands for Money and it is Bad. I knew that the world is Round and so became my understanding on that word.
I never occurred to me when I actually got the meaning of that word. As my mother told, I did understand with time. It indeed is a very interesting word.
And lately I got a new dimension to this word.
I Thank Albert (Einstein). His contribution to science has brought to me this new understanding of Maya-
Maya is Relativity. All the diverging thoughts on that word seem to align when relativity sneaks in. Wondering HOW?? So, let us investigate all (my) understanding of this word. Starting from the beginning-
First Sub Maya hai(All is relative) --If we see our worlds, we all live our day to day life relative to something. Example: I am Happy (probably there were time when I was not), I live a decent life (someone doesn't), I like speed (relative again). The easiest test is to question oneself "WHO AM I?". Ponder on all the possible answers, they all will be relative to something.
Second Maya is worldly and Non Worldly -- The worldly part is explained above (so some overlap exist in answers).
Now lets move to Non-Worldly. First define the non Worldly. I take it something out of our Planet , the space, is Non Worldly. All the discoveries and talks are relative to our Earth. Of all the theories of space origin, if we take Big Bang as our base, still our research are never about the absolute point of Bang, but Earth centric.
Third Maya is Bad: Absolutely Right; ABSOLUTE is what is True and Reliable. In our programming world it is recommended to use absolute paths to help portability and reduce errors. Even religious sculptures preach to seek absolute to break the life cycle and unite with the divine.
Anyone to Contest the idea? :-))
