Maya and Brahman Are One

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

Maya and Brahman Are One
This exposition of the Devi Tattva goes to explain to us how the Supreme Shakti is all in all.
It tells us that whatever we see, whatever we perceive in this phenomenal universe before us, is
nothing but the outcome of this supreme power of the Para Brahman, viz. the primal force. She is
called the Adi-Shakti. She is also known as the transcendental power—Para-Shakti. She is known
as the superlative, the great power—Maha-Shakti.
What exactly is the relationship between this great-Divine Power and the ultimate Supreme
Being the Almighty, is a question that is very interesting and which occupies the minds of all great
thinkers. Varied explanations have been given but sages of realisation have stated in illuminating
terms the secret of this relationship between the deity as they conceived of in its aspect of Supreme
Mother and the deity in its transcendental aspect. We are told how the Para Brahman and His
Supreme Mysterious Power of World-illusion whom we call Maya or Devi are in fact one and the
same in essence. They are apparently different, but yet they are one. It is a distinction without a
difference in fact. That is the relationship between them. As it were they are the obverse and the
reverse of the self-same coin. You cannot conceive of the Para Brahman without conceiving of the
Devi; and the conception of the Devi automatically pre-supposes the conception of the
Para-Brahman. They explain to us how the Devi or the Supreme Divine Mother is the mysterious
link between the manifest and the unmanifest. She is the medium that connects the un-manifest with
the manifest. For instance, there is an effect and a cause which is responsible for this effect—but
what is the thing which connects the effect with the cause and the cause with the effect? There is
some mysterious link which connects these two and makes them one. Though apparently two, they
are in reality two terminals of the self-same process. This process of the cause becoming manifest as
the effect, this power that makes the cause appear as the effect is known as the Maya, the illusion or
the Devi.
The Supreme Brahman is also described as perfectly beyond all movement and motion
because being of the nature of limitlessness and infinity the very question of motion does not arise.
The Supreme Power whom we call Devi is described as the dynamic aspect of the Para Brahman.
They say that they are as inseparable as the whiteness of the milk and the milk; as the heat and fire;
as a snake and its zigzag motion. The moment you think of milk, automatically you think of
whiteness. The moment you think of fire, you posit also the heat. If the burning property is taken
away from fire, you can no longer call it fire. Even so, Para Brahman and Shakti are as inseparable
as the burning property of fire and fire itself. If Brahman is fire, Shakti or Devi is the burning
property of fire. A more up-to-date analogy which we can draw to illustrate the mysterious
connection between Maya or Prakriti or Shakti and Brahman is this. We have the power of
electricity when it is inside a battery. When the power of electricity is here within the battery, it is
not manifest. It is not dynamic. It is static. The battery can be taken from place to place: no one will
know that it holds within itself the tremendous force.
There is no indication to give us an idea that it contains within itself this marvellous power.
But the moment this self-same electric current is made to spring into dynamism through a system of
wiring through a circuit, we find this static force springs into a wonderful dynamism. It travels with
lightning speed; it is able to give a shock; or to make an electric bulb spring into incandescence and
manifest as light; it manifests itself as the whirling motion in a fan; it manifests itself as freezing
cold within the refrigerator and as abnormal power of heat in an electric heater; it is able to burn
things; it manifests as sound in an electric siren—this power which is held in a static form within a
battery becomes manifest as light, motion, heat, cold, sound and any number of aspects manifest
and tangible and perceivable through the senses. Even so the Supreme Power in its transcendental
motionless static aspect known as the Para Brahman is nameless, formless, unmanifest and the
self-same supreme power when it springs into manifestation, into creativity, is projected as names
and forms, into countless dynamic forces which pervade the entire phenomenal world. Mother is
electricity, the brightness of the sun, the depth of the ocean, movement in the hand, the smell and
fragrance in flowers, the musical note in sound, everything in this universe, invisible as well as
visible, all motion, all force, all movements; and She is present in the human being as intelligence,
as mind, as Vrittis, as emotions—everything that we perceive in this world either within the
individual or without in the forces of nature. She is the very life of the universe. She is the very
source, the sustainer and ultimate dissolver of the universe. Sarvam Shaktimayam Jagat; this is the
ultimate truth. Whatever there is in the universe from the grossest thing to the subtlest, the least to
the greatest—everything is the variegated manifestation of the Supreme Mother Herself, the
Transcendental Power of the Supreme Being. It is this cosmic Power who appears as all names and
forms, who is the very source of all embodiment, of all manifestation. It is on account of the Mother
that manifestation is made possible.
It is this Supreme Force that we worship during the nine days through the medium of certain
forms. This great power of all powers is conceived of by the devout worshipper in certain distinct
aspects—in her three aspects as Mahakali or Durga, Mahalakshmi and as Mahasaraswati. The
nine-day worship is divided into three groups of three days each—the first three days we worship
the Mother as manifest in and through the form of Mahakali or Durga. During the second group of
three days we worship the Divine Mother as manifest in and through our conception of the form of
Mahalakshmi. And during the last three days we worship Her in and through the form of
Mahasaraswati. This particular order of the worship has got a very deep and very vital meaning,
about which we shall refer during the subsequent days.