What Is Maya? The answer to it is found in the Kaivalya Navaneeta of Sri Ramana Maharshi.
What is maya? The answer is: It is anirvachaniya or indescribable.
To whom does it come? The answer is: To the mind or ego who feels that he is a separate entity, who thinks ‘I do this’ or ‘This is mine’.
Where does it come from and how did it originate? The answer: Nobody can say.
How did it arise? The answer is: Through non-vichara, through failure to enquire ‘Who am I?’
If the Self and maya both exist, does this not invalidate the theory of Advaita? The answer is: It need not, since maya is dependent on the Self as the picture is on the screen. The picture is not real in the sense that the screen is real.
If the Self and maya are one, could it not be argued that the Self is of the nature of maya and that it is also illusory? The answer is: No, the Self can be capable of producing illusion without being illusory. A conjuror may create for our entertainment the illusion of people, animals and things, and we see all of them as clearly as we see him, but after the performance he alone remains and all the visions he created have disappeared. He is not a part of the vision but solid and real.