The Six Questions

Sri Ramana Maharshi

29-5-1946

Bose: When the Upanishads say that all is Brahman, how can we say, like Shankara, that this world is mithya or illusory?

Bhagavan: Shankara also said that this world is Brahman or the Self. What he objected to is one’s imagining that the Self is limited by the names and forms that constitute the world. He only said that the world does not exist apart from Brahman. Brahman or the Self is like the screen and the world is like the pictures on it. You can see the picture only so long as there is a screen. But when the seer himself becomes the screen only the Self remains. Kaivalya Navaneeta has asked and answered six questions about maya. They are instructive.

The first question is: What is maya? 

And the answer is: It is anirvachaniya or indescribable.

The second question is: To whom does it come? 

And the answer is: To the mind or ego who feels that he is a separate entity, who thinks: ‘I do this’ or ‘this is mine’.

The third question is: Where does it come from and how did it originate? 

And the answer is: Nobody can say.

The fourth question is: How did it arise? 

And the answer is: Through non-vichara, through failure to ask: who am I?

The fifth question is: If the Self and maya both exist does not this invalidate the theory of Advaita?

The answer is: It need not, since maya is dependent on the Self as the picture is on the screen. The picture is not real in the sense that the screen is real. 

The sixth question is: If the Self and maya are one, could it not be argued that the Self is of the nature of maya, that is illusory?

And the answer is: No; the Self can be capable of producing illusion without being illusory. A conjuror may create for our entertainment the illusion of people, animals and things, and we see all of them as clearly as we see him; but after the performance he alone remains and all the visions he had created have disappeared. He is not a part of the illusion but is real and solid.