MAYA AS CREATIVITY

The word maya is used in the non-dual traditions to describe consciousness’s ability to assume a form with which it seems to limit itself.  It is the power that a screen possesses to appear as a landscape and, as such, seem to veil itself with its own creativity.  From this perspective maya is often translated as ‘illusion,’ that is, the ability of infinite consciousness, the self-aware screen, to appear as something other than itself, which it now knows from the perspective of a separate subject within its own dream.  However, the illusion is only such from the limited and ultimately imaginary perspective of the separate subject of experience that seems to come into existence as a result of consciousness’s veiling power.

Maya, as illusion, is the activity of the mind through which infinite consciousness brings manifestation out of its own being into apparent existence.  It is its own cause.  However, from the point of view of consciousness, its ability to assume innumerable names and forms does not create the illusion of a world, but is rather seen and experienced as an ever-changing outpouring of itself within itself in order to realise, manifest and enjoy the endless flow of its own infinite potential in form.  Thus, the deeper meaning of the word maya is ‘creativity,’ the process by which consciousness manifests itself as an ever-changing flow of experience without ever ceasing to be and know itself alone.

In other words, the veiling of consciousness is only such from the perspective of the separate subject of experience.  From the perspective of a separate self, maya is an illusion; from the perspective of consciousness, it is an expression of its own inherent freedom and creativity, with which its never-changing reality appears in the form of ever-changing experience.

Thus, when the apparently separate self is divested of its self-assumed limitations and stands revealed as the true and only self of infinite awareness, maya ceases to be a veiling power and is experienced as a revealing power, and in correspondence with this change, objective experience, which once seemed to veil consciousness, now shines within it.

Consciousness knows itself in and as the totality of experience.  Even our darkest moods shine with the light of its knowing.  This ability of consciousness to be, know or become anything other than itself is the experience of love, which admits no separation, objectivity or otherness.  Thus, from the perspective of consciousness, creation is a manifestation of love.

Rupert Spira, The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter.

FOCUS, FIELD & ATTENTION IN SPIRA

To know form or manifestation, consciousness must focus its knowing or attention in a particular direction.  For a specific object – a thought, image, feeling, sensation or perception – to come into the field of experience, consciousness must contract within itself, focusing and thus limiting its knowing in the form of attention.  As such, attention brings form into existence out of the formless field of infinite consciousness.

This directing of its attention necessarily involves the exclusion, ignoring or forgetting of everything that is outside its focal field, just as your focusing on these words at present necessarily excludes numerous other experiences, which are, as a result, scattered at the periphery of your field of experience.  For instance, the tingling sensation at the tips of your fingers didn’t come into existence the moment you read these words.  It was there all along, but eclipsed by your interest in these words.

Rupert Spira, The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter.

BEING AWARE (INSTINCT/INTELLIGENCE IN SPIRA)

Prior to any manifestation, awareness remains motionless and alone, knowing only its own eternal, infinite being.  Awareness does not know itself as an object in the way the mind seems to know objects, and thus awareness’s knowing of its own eternal, infinite being is said to be ‘empty’ or ‘void’.

However, that is only true from the point of view of the mind, which believes objects to be real things in their own right, made out of stuff called ‘matter’.  From such a point of view awareness is empty, void, not-a-thing or nothing.  From its own point of view – which is the only real point of view, and is itself not a ‘point’ of view – awareness is not nothing, nor is it something.  ‘Nothing’ and ‘something’ both belong to mind, for both derive their meaning from the assumption of independently existing ‘things’.

AWARENESS

All that is know, or could ever be known, is experience. Struggle as we may with the implications of this statement, we cannot legitimately deny it. Being all that could ever be known, experience itself must be the test of reality. If we do not take experience as the test of reality, belief will be the only alternative. Experience and belief – or ‘the way of truth and the way of opinion’, as Parmenides expressed it in the fifth century BCE – are the only two possibilities.

Whether mind perceives a world outside of itself, as is believed under the prevailing materialist paradigm, or projects the world within itself, as is believed in the consciousness-only approach, everything that is known or experienced is known or experienced through the medium of mind. As such, the mind imposes its own limits on everything that it ever knows, and thus all knowledge and experience appear as a reflection of its own limitations. It is for this reason that scientists will never discover the reality of the universe until they are willing to explore the nature of their own minds.

The word ‘reality’ is derived from the Latin res, meaning ‘thing’, betraying our world culture’s belief that reality consist of things made of matter. However, nobody has ever experienced or could experience anything outside awareness, so the idea of an independently existing substance, namely matter, that exists outside awareness is simply a belief to which the vast majority of humanity subscribes. It is the fundamental assumption upon which all psychological suffering and its expression in conflicts between individuals, communities and nations are predicated. If we refer directly to experience – and experience alone must be the test of reality – all that is or could ever be known exists within, is known by and is made of awareness alone.

Any intellectually rigorous and honest model of experience must start with awareness, and indeed never stray from it. To start anywhere else is to start with an assumption. Our world culture is founded upon such an assumption: that matter precedes and gives rise to awareness. This is in direct contradiction to experience itself, from whose perspective awareness is the primary and indeed only ingredient in experience, and must therefore be the origin and context of any model of reality.

It is commonly believed that awareness is a property of the body, and as a result we feel that it is ‘I, this body’ that knows or is aware of the world. That is, we believe and feel that the knowing with which we are aware of our experience is located in and shares the limits and destiny of the body. This is the fundamental assumption of self and other, mind and matter, subject and object that underpins almost all our thoughts and feelings, and is subsequently expressed in our activities and relationships.

Being aware or awareness itself is not a property of a person, self or body. All that is known of a body is a flow of continuously changing sensations and perceptions. All sensation and perceptions appear in the mind, and the only substance present in the mind is awareness or consciousness itself. Thus, the body is an appearance in mind, and the ultimate reality of mind, and therefore the body, is awareness.

It is thought that mistakenly identifies awareness with the limits and destiny of the body and thus believes that awareness is intermittent. However, in awareness’s own experience of itself – and awareness is the only ‘one’ that is in a position to know anything about itself – it is eternal, or ever-present.

Awareness vibrates within itself and assumes the form of the finite mind. The finite mind is therefore not an entity in its own right; it is the activity of awareness. There are no real objects, entities or selves, each with its own separate identity, appearing in awareness, just as there are no real characters in a movie. There is only awareness and its activity, just as there is only the movie screen and its modulation.

Awareness assumes the form of the finite mind in order to simultaneously create and know the world, but it doesn’t need to assume the form of mind in order to know itself. Awareness is made of pure knowing or being aware, and therefore knows itself simply by being itself. Awareness doesn’t need to reflect its knowing off an object in order to know itself, just as the sun doesn’t need to reflect its light off the moon in order to illuminate itself.

Rupert Spira, The Nature of Consciousness: Essays on the Unity of Mind and Matter.