12. EVERYTHING IS MAYA, AN ILLUSION
If somebody hears that everything in this world is an illusion, is Maya, they will laugh. 'How can you call this an illusion?' they will say. 'It is real. Don't you see it happening? You can touch it and feel it. It is not like a dream that ceases to unfold once we wake up.'
What is an illusion? It is something that appears to be but is not. A rainbow appears in the sky, but when we go to touch it, it doesn't exist. We human beings live and die without realizing the Truth that life itself is an illusion. Everything is a projection. Maya, the cosmic illusion conceals the Truth and projects the myth, and thus everything appears to be real. It may appear that everything belongs to us and we say, 'This house is mine,' this car is mine and these relationships are mine,' but don't we know that in the end, nothing is ours? When the drama of life is over, everything that appeared as 'ours', wasn't really ours. The one who lives in Chit or Consciousness realizes the Truth of Maya. He doesn't think that anything belongs to him. He becomes conscious that life is no more than a dream.
We human beings are quite familiar with dreams. While we are aware of our dreams being unreal, we are not conscious that life itself which is nothing more than a long dream, will end at death. We must become conscious of this Truth. Unless we live in Consciousness, we will believe the 'waking dream' to be real, when in reality it is not.