Two Kinds of Maya

 

Only very few in this material world search after Truth. Most are satisfied with the lies being served to them, by leaders who know well how to please the public by false promises and very temporary pleasures.

 

Even some, not necessarily devotees of the Lord, who raise about the level of the rest of the public, know that. As Bernard Shaw said once, „Truth is the only thing nobody wants to believe“.

Anybody believing he is his body is liar, as ultimately he is not the owner of the vehicle being given to him by the material energy of the Lord.

It is a world of cheaters and cheated, as Bhaktisiddhanta maharaja said, and those who do believe firmly to be the body belong always to one of these categories.

 

Then, after many many lifetimes, there are those who try to get out of this network of illusions by a spiritual process, finally arriving to the chanting of the Holy Name.

 

But maya doesn't stop there. She can chant too, she is a pure devotee :-)

She can present herself in so many pseudo-spiritual forms, just to test our sincerity and our real desire.

 

She has two kinds of energies which work even on those who can be very spiritually advanced.

She may suddenly throw a devotee of the Lord into unexpected and embarrassing situation.This happens mostly in times when he is exposed to bad association. Such praksepatmika shakti is very powerful and leads to sudden unexpected fall down. Srila Prabhupada gives following example:

 

A devotee enters a meeting of cigarette smokers with the intention to introduce them to Krsna consciousness. Having once smoked cigarettes himself, he knows the danger of this habituation and that makes him even more eager to preach. While doing so one of the „friends“ offers him naturally a cigarette as this is the way to show affection amongst that particular group of conditioned souls. Our devotee, still speaking about Krsna, picks up the cigarette offered to him and automatically, following his old anartha, habituation, starts smoking while talking to others.

Suddenly he realizes „Oh no! I am smoking!“...and rejects the cigarette immediately.

 

Such fall down will be excused, says Srila Prabhupada. It is based on weakness and prolonged stay in this material world.

 

But then there is far more dangerous form of maya - the avaranatmika shakti, the gradually covering potency of the Lord, chipping away piece after piece whatever was collected in Krsna consciousnes from the increasingly unaware bhakta. Anybody who came to conclude that actually by dint of his practice of Krsna consciousness he is already sufficiently strong to keep the illusory energy of the Lord away once for all, is an ideal candidate to be covered in this way.

 

So many godbrothers of mine provided clear evidence how dangerous it can be when a good devotee is placed into wrong situation and convincing himself about the correctness of his actions, is loosing any sort of introspectiveness.

 

In this way the originally idealistic preacher becomes an arrogant title-carrier, putting his faith more into his institutional status than into Krsna's words. Krsna defines this world as the „world of names only“ and so our great preacher becomes a fierce defender of his designations, accepting the comforts offered by unqualified worshipers and becoming conditioned by such superficial flattery. As one of my godbrothers demonstrated this sort of illusion so nicely, when asked by his friend how he came to understand apparently that he is indeed a pure devotee, he answered: "Don't you see how my disciples are worshipping me?“

 

So mistaken can be somebody who is under the influence of avaranatmika shakti! Having association of other „avaranatmikashaktas“, such illusioned man can be hardly rectified. Even some of his followers, more aware of maya's  presence, may finally discretely avoid his association, he will declare their fear of maya being „offensive“, and keep on basking in his own self-invented glory. So powerful is maya's grip that in hope against hope he still maintains his false indenity, until he will be transferred to another body so he may eventually finish his uncompleted task.

 

The avaranatmika shakti movement is indeed large and growing.

Rejecting active preaching and being satisfied with well-paid administrative posts, such avaranatmika shakti's victim maintains stubbornly his false identity and teaches his followers to do the same.

 

Today we can find pseudo-spiritual literature circulating amongst devotees, glorifying the most dangerous class of mayavadis as being instrumental to our spiritual progress. We can find „leaders“ who regarding their morality hardly reach standards of their followers. We can find those who grew from inspired saviours of the conditioned souls, into arrogant controlers of the conditioned souls, deriving their power from unlawfully collected money. How could mutate such saviours into arrogant controlers, demanding and not commanding authority?

 

The power of avaranatmika shakti is immense. “Time I am“ says Krsna and it is time which covers our original identity as eternal servant of the Lord.

One lifetime is long enough to become covered again, but alas, one lifetime is very short to become entirely uncovered, freed from maya's grip.

 

The greatest devotees of the Lord pray never to become captured by maya again. Change of consciousness means change of body, and so we can understand that the way „senior vaisnava“ is often explained, as if being older on basis of the age of his body, is entirely unscientific and wrong. There can be young wise men and there can be old fools indeed.

 

What is the nature of an old fool?

Here are some symptoms of his conditioning:

 

He claims seniority on the strength of the age of his body.

He demands authority without earning it by dint of superior realized knowledge.

He collects money and followers in order to maintain his body and in order to reconfirm his false concept of himself.

He may speak wisely in academic sense, but act foolishly.

He likes to mingle with mayavadis, and he likes adopting their ideas.

He believes that institutional title defines his spiritual status.

He has no recollection of his past sinful activites or his falls down.

He is not actively preaching, satisfied with administrative posts only.

He attracts fools so he can dominate them by his „superior knowledge“.

He avoids the intelligence of his critics while embracing the foolishness of his "friends".

He follows the rules without understanding their purpose.

He sees his social appearance as his priority, not his personal purification .

He is bereft of any humor, and responds aggressively to anybody who deems to be able to expose his hypocricy.

 

...and so on.

 

Only by the mercy of Srila Prabhupada we can be protected from both kind of maya, as from Him comes intelligence, and from Him comes the knowledge we need. It takes such an extremely powerful acharya to tear down the covering of the conditioned soul and allow its original brightness to come forth. Such blessing is manifested by the satisfaction, happiness and finally ecstasy, all present in the heart of anybody who is truly connected via Srila Prabhupada to the guru parampara.

 

The result?

 

Increased book distribution of Srila Prabhupada's books.

Increased presence of devotees in karmi society in form of hare nama and prasadam distribution.

Increased numbers of those who want to be engaged in the same process, and contribute to the mission of Srila Prabhupada in any way they can.

 

As Sanjaya finally says, where there is Krsna and Arjuna, there is opulence, victory, extraordinary power and morality.

This is the proof for absence of praksepatmika and avaranatmika shaktis of the Lord.