In Hinduism, Maya is used to denote both Prakriti or Nature and deluding power. Prakriti is the dynamic energy of God. Like Him or Her, it’s unborn, uncreated, individual and indestructible.

Awareness program on the concept of Maya is a two-day program. God undertakes five functions: Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, Concealer and Bestower of grace. In His/Her job as Concealer, He/She unleashes the power of Maya, through Prakriti, to hide from what He/She generates and delude all the living beings (jivas) into thinking that what they experience by using their perceptions is real and that they are independent of their objects and other people they perceive through their senses.

Maya consequently causes ignorance and, through ignorance, perpetuates the notion of duality, which is accountable for our bondage and mortality on the planet.

We must become conscious of the extent of its influence and its function in our lives. Out of this consciousness comes a feeling of caution and discrimination, which ultimately contributes to our salvation. But till we reach that point, we remain in the grasp of Maya, as a fly caught helplessly in a web. Awareness program on the concept of Maya tries to empower the individual to understand this.

It is through the perceptions and their activity. The Bhagavadgita explains the procedure thus, “By always thinking of the materialistic things, a mortal being gets attached to them. Attached thus, he develops various desires, from which consequently ensues anger. From anger comes delusion, and from delusion arises confusion of memory. From the confusion of memory arises loss of intelligence, and when intelligence is lost, the breath of life is also lost (2.60-63).

So, we human beings draw ourselves into relationships and situations we think will lead to our happiness and satisfaction. We become involved in the process, and with Prakriti we forget who we are, why we are here, or what we need to do to be ourselves.

Under the influence of Maya that an individual loses his intelligence and power of discretion. He loses contact with his or her authentic self and believes he is the physical self with a mind and body subject to constant change, instability, death, and birth. In that delusion, he believes that he is the doer of his actions, that he is accountable for his actions, he is alone and independent, he cannot live without or with specific things and so on. In contrast, in truth, he’s an element of God, who has hidden, who is the real doer, and for whose expertise all it has been created. Because of his dumb beliefs, he develops an attachment with mysterious objects and wants to possess them. He also spends his entire life pursuing useless objectives on the planet, considering them to become critical for his success, survival, joy and personal pride.

One can overcome the power of Maya by creating detachment, eliminating the senses from sense objects, dedicating to God and performing desireless actions accepting God as the doer.

Does Hinduism consider the world where we live as real or unreal? It is unreal not since it does not exist but because it is unstable, impermanent, unreliable and illusory. It is unreal since it hides the truth and shows us things that lead to our ignorance. It is unreal since it changes its colours every moment. What is now is not what is next. The universe is so dynamic at a macro and micro level.

The world where we reside gives us an apparent illusion of equilibrium, whereas, in truth, it isn’t. It is an illusion to think that this world is the same always or that the folks we deal with will be the same all the time. The planet is, therefore, an illusion, not since it does not exist in the physical sense, but because it’s unstable, ever-changing, impermanent, unreliable and most significant of all, never precisely the same. Are you the same person you were a minute ago?

The scriptures state that it would be unwise to centre our Lives around such an unstable world since if you spend your life for the sake of impermanent and undependable things, you’re sure to repent ultimately for wasting your life in the pursuit of emptiness. The actual world is located beyond our ordinary senses, where our existence would be eternal and things would not change the way they do in this plane.

The objective of the awareness program on Maya

The awareness program or course on Maya, Prakriti aim to empower the participants on the concept of Maya and make them aware of what Maya means. Out of this awareness comes a sense of caution and discrimination, which ultimately leads us to the search for the ultimate truth.