दैवी ह्येषा गुणमयी मम माया दुरत्यया |
मामेव ये प्रपद्यन्ते मायामेतां तरन्ति ते || 14||
मामेव ये प्रपद्यन्ते मायामेतां तरन्ति ते || 14||
daivī hyeṣhā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te
mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te
~Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 7, verse 14
Shree Krishna says that
Maya is very difficult to overcome because it is his energy. If anyone conquers
Maya, it means that person has conquered God himself. Since no one can defeat
God, no one can defeat Maya either. And because the mind is made from Maya, no
yogi, jnani, ascetic, or karmi can successfully control the mind merely by self-effort.
Here’s a short story to
illustrate this shloka.
Sage Narada once asked
Krishna the meaning of Maya.
Krishna said, ‘It is better
experienced than understood. Come let’s ride into the forest in my chariot.’
After riding deep into the
forest, Krishna said, ‘I am thirsty. You look thirsty too. I can hear a river
flowing beyond the trees. But I am too tired to walk there. You go to the
river, quench your thirst and get some water back for me. But before you drink
the water make sure you bathe.’
Narada walked to the river.
It was farther than he had assumed it was. By the time he reached the waters he
was so thirsty that he drank the water forgetting to first take a bath as
instructed by Krishna. As a result he turned into a woman, a beautiful woman.
A man saw Narada, the
woman, and fell in love with her and begged her to marry him. Narada was so
enchanted by the flattery that he agreed. The two lived a happy married life
and had sixty children. But then there was an epidemic that claimed the lives
of her husband and her children. Narada was miserable. She felt she should kill
herself. But then suddenly sorrow was replaced by ravenous hunger.
She smelt the sweet smell
of a mango from the tree near her house. She stretched out her hand to fetch it
but it was out of reach. So she dragged the corpses of her husband and
children, climbed on them, plucked the fruit and was about to eat it when a
priest appeared and told her to at least take a bath before eating the fruit as
she had been contaminated by touching dead bodies.
So Narada entered the river
to take a bath, keeping the hand holding the mango above the water, for she
feared the force of the water would wash the mango away. When she emerged, she
was a man once again but the hand holding the mango still had the bangles she
wore as a woman.
Suddenly he remembered all
that had happened. The priest who had asked her to take a bath was Krishna
himself, ‘See how you forgot all about me and my thirst and my instructions to
take a bath before drinking the water. See how once you became a woman you
enjoyed the attention of a man and then the attention of your children. And
when they died, you forgot about them to satisfy your desire for the mango
fruit. This is Maya, delusion produced by desire that makes you forget
everything except the pursuit of self-gratification.’
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P.S. (This story features in Devdutt Pattnaik's "Shikhandi". While he has used the story in context of Narada turning into a woman, here the same story illustrates the concept of Maya or illusion.)
