Maya is real. It is as real as it is misunderstood. One can contend that it is less real than the absolute reality, that which Vedanta calls Brahman, but even such gradations are open to question. Swami Vivekananda has given a felicitous definition of maya—what we are and what we see around us. One can understand it simply as the manifold world we all know as ‘our world’. And as much spirituality seeks to cut through maya to expose the absolute, the fact is that its tenacity remains scandalously underappreciated, precisely why most spiritual expeditions fall short of the finishing line. Its roots run into the greatest depths of psychology and preponderate on the unconscious, which makes it crucial to adopt a scientific approach towards countering it.
More often than not, something of such extraordinary psychological tenacity has evolutionary underpinnings, which means that they would have been favoured along the course of the natural evolution of our species due to conferring a prominent survival advantage. And it isn’t hard to imagine how maya would have been favoured by evolution. The idea and experience of Brahman did little to improve the reproductive fitness of the primaeval human. All that they needed to perpetuate themselves—from invading neighbouring chiefdoms to warding off assailants—only made sense in the presence of maya, and it is the world of maya that our innate faculties needed to master. And maya remains as relevant to us today in our lives as it ever did, which effectively rules out the possibility of us ever losing this embedded mental programme.
The implications of the evolution-backed tenacity of maya are two-fold: First, that subduing it is way harder than one can expect. The spectacle of maya and its varied ramifications creates strong and deep-rooted impressions in the mind that are exceedingly hard to dial down. At some point in our lives, we would all have experienced how our new year resolutions give in before our temptations. It is simple mental math—the mental impressions of these temptations far outweigh those of our frivolous resolutions.
Similarly, to rein in maya takes impressions equally strong, if not stronger. The second implication is even more consequential. Being evolutionarily hardwired for maya, it can never be eliminated from our minds but only subdued temporarily. Maya is aggressively self-reinforcing, and no victory over it is full and final. Realisation of Brahman destroys maya, but its onslaught resumes the very moment we return to our everyday lives. The Buddha would withdraw into meditation from active teaching thrice a day. The purpose was to re-establish a connection with the absolute truth, which maya progressively chips away at.
Meditation finds a mind-boggling array of meanings and purposes today, from stress relief to cultivating concentration and mindfulness. These are, at best, secondary. Its real purpose is to provide a potent tool to subdue maya by helping us develop strong counter-mental impressions. An overriding prerequisite for meditating is to be free from mental and physical distractions, which lays a conducive inner environment for new impressions to express themselves and gain in strength. It is like pre-workout stretches for gym-goers. The Raja Yogi, having purified his mind and action, practiced specific asanas, regulated his breathing, and developed an impeccable concentration, becomes poised to experience the non-dual Brahman. But this is just one of its many use cases. The practitioner of meditation must not stereotype meditation as a set of physical postures and definite mental manoeuvres. They must possess only one solitary goal—to form strong counter-impressions to maya—and whatever is subservient to this goal becomes part of meditating. This includes visualisation, ratiocination and other such mental exercises, as well as practically confronting maya in controlled life scenarios with eyes wide open.
Just like maya, meditation has been subject to many limiting misconceptions and stereotypes. These can only mean a disservice to spiritual development. The practitioner of meditation, in addition to being familiar with the workings of maya, must not lose sight of the guiding star—that which is his own mental impressions.