Maya is a concept arising out of Hindu philosophic tradition. I first heard of it in a comparative religion class. It is the idea that we see the world not as it really is. What we see is illusory and distorted. The interesting part is that we are not seeing a false reality, but a misinterpretation.

The technical explanation is that all reality is Brahman; God, the origin and substance of existence, or reality, or whatever you choose to call life. My use of Brahman here is as a model of unified reality for purposes of further discussion; I am not using it in its full theological context and this is not a commentary on or commitment to Hinduism. Within Maya, we are seeing reality without understanding what is really there. Our interpretations are wrong. As a result, we are unable to observe the underlying reality that makes up our world, our existence.

Based on this definition we can discern and describe instances of Maya that happen in our everyday life. Think about your propensity to see faces where there are none. This is called pareidolia and is a well documented phenomenon. Shankara, Vedic scholar, “liked to use the simile of a man who saw something lying on the ground and jumped, thinking it was a snake; he looked again and saw it was only a piece of rope” (Elwood & McGraw, 2002, p. 79). There are many examples of how our senses can mislead us; we will explore some of these here.

We must also take into account that others attempt to mislead us. Think of media, advertising, propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, lies, treachery; all tools to mislead us, create illusions, and distort reality. These tools, and many others, are used by government, businesses, friends, rivals, and loved ones against us. The use of these tools is not necessarily or always a bad thing with negative consequences, but we still need to understand the reality behind these instances of Maya.

In this section we will explore what Maya is, the tools, practices, and uses of Maya, and what we can do to see our reality for what it really is. At this point we have already introduced two distinct Mayas: endogenous Maya related to cognitive limits as individuals, or internal Maya; and an exogenous Maya related to deception and manipulation, or external Maya. It is important to understand the difference between misleading ourselves and being mislead by others.

Discerning reality in the presence of Maya entails a willingness to train yourself in the rigorous investigation of reality. Most will choose to remain unaware. All the tools required to discern reality are built into you: your powers of observation, your thought processes and interpretations, and patience. Deliberately trained, these tools will allow you to identify patterns, interrogate sensory impressions, and separate signal from distortion.

The following links will take you into further explorations of the discernment of reality, or overcoming Maya: