We see golden ornaments. Beautiful and ugly we call them, but the gold tester sees only gold in them. To him there are no ornaments, ugly or beautiful. He sees so much weight in gold. We believe our senses, but our senses deceive us. Ignorance is the great deceiver. It is maya. It makes us see things differently from what they are. And this whole creation is maya. It draws our attention away from God, the Reality, and makes us see a phenomenal world. The actor becomes so identified with his act that he regards his fellow actor as a real scoundrel and kills him on the stage. It seems impossible but it has happened. This is maya. The other train moves out of the depot, but we think that our train is moving. The earth moves, but we think that the sun moves. We whirl through space, but we think we are stationary.
We are like the little boy who asked his mother to tell him a story for his diversion. And the mother told him of three princes who were never born and who went hunting in the forest without trees. They came to a river without water and as they were tired and warm, they enjoyed a cool bath in the river. After a long time they reached a city without buildings; the buildings were constructed without roofs or walls. In one of these houses they took shelter, for rain came down in torrents — well, so the story goes on, all nonsense and impossible, but the boy enjoyed the story and believed it all. It seemed quite possible and natural to him.
So we must not be surprised that we cannot understand how God can be all these things. In time we will realize the Truth and then all becomes simple and natural and we will smile. Until then, we must have a little faith in the Holy Scriptures and the words of holy men who claim to have realized the Truth, who claim to speak from experience. And then when our desire to know for ourselves becomes very strong and we begin to live a truly spiritual life, the Truth will be revealed to us bit by bit, flash after flash, and we will begin to construct the whole; it will all become clear at last. In samadhi these great revelations come, in deep meditation. And then we will be at rest. We will know peace and contentment. That contentment is called santosha. It means freedom from aversion. Then the mind draws away from sense objects and goes towards the Atman. And that peace is called shanti. It is that sweet patience that nothing can ruffle. All desires and sorrows fly as twilight before the rising sun. The virtuous and vicious alike confide in him who experiences this, says the Yoga Vasistha. Such realized souls remain the same under all conditions, the same in pleasure and pain. They know that Brahman alone is all this universe. As one lump of gold is converted into many ornaments, so from the Unborn all this is born. They know the truth that nothing can exist outside of God. He is All in all, the beginning, the middle and the end. ‘Existence alone existed, O Beloved, nothing else existed in the beginning.’