Maya deludes the world of men. She is the great enchantress. Krishna says in the Bhagavata Gita, “My Maya is hard to break. Her way of operating is perverse. She makes the real seem unreal, makes consciousness appear like matter, God appear like man and the One many. Maya gives rise to the veil.” We indeed are lost in a land of impermanence and fantasy, intoxicated with the web of multiplicity, lost in the maze of images that all appear real. The themes of victories and losses, of loving and parting keep us enamored. The great enchantress Maya makes us see pleasure even in potential sources of pain. Like a bee stuck to the honey of desire, we are unable to escape. What, then, is the way to overcome this infatuation with the myriad forms of Maya? When a thin veil of illusion is the enemy, denial is not the solution to render it powerless. Vigil is. Patanjali points out how ignorant it is to take the non-eternal, impure non-self to be pure and eternal. Uninterrupted practice of awareness of the “real” is the means of dispersion of ignorance, guides Patanjali. Like a watchdog perpetually on guard to protect its master, so must we be to treasure the Shiva that resides within us. Withdrawal of the mind from distractions and centering it on the awareness that transcendence exists at all times, even in our deluded state, eventually results in the conquest of the Great Illusion.

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