Why do I suffer? Ignorance of our real nature and
potentiality is an important cause of human suffering. It is a mystery of human
nature that even though the soul is possessed of an immense and inexhaustible
source of power like a dynamo, yet one forgets all about it.
The Vedanta philosophers account for this anomaly by positing
an entity called maya. The word means that which, ya, is not, ma (maya – that which
is not).
They went on to demonstrate a twofold function of this
strange entity: covering the real nature of things, avarana, and making things
appear as something else, vikshepa.
Everything in the universe, both gross and subtle, come
under the purview of maya.
Under its spell one’s real identity shrinks and one projects
one’s infinite power into the worldly perspective. It is through maya that a person
forgets one’s nature and starts wallowing in the mire of the world through
various ‘dances of death’ expressed in competition, jealousy, power-mongering,
and others.
One never stops to think that there is no need to run after happiness
like a musk-deer in search of its musk which is in its navel.
The source of all happiness
and bliss is within oneself, but the human being seeks it outside in the world
and tries to dominate over others in one’s desperate bid to crave for more and
more. At last, like the musk deer, a person dies in one’s futile attempt,
worn-out and with hopes blighted.