Theos-Talk Archives (July 2004 Message tt00238)

--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "Perry Coles" <perrycoles@y...> 
wrote:


> The words illusion and maya to me mean that we only see things 
partially or not in 
> their totality.


It is quite interesting to see how these traditions seem to have a 
common ground, which was what HPB, imo, was trying to convey. For 
exemple, the notion of Maya which was mentioned by you, Perry, and 
also by Katinka in a previous posting. 

The theosophical view of Maya seems very much influenced by what is 
called "Mayavada" by Sri Sankaracharya, which makes him to state that 
the universe is unreal because it is perceived through the illusory 
power of Maya. On the other hand, in "Shaktivada", which is at the 
heart of the Hindu Tantra, Maya is regarded as a Mother-Goddess that 
gives birth and nourishes the universe. In a well-known and classic 
hymn to Sakti (the Divine Mother), "Lalitashahashranama" (Thousand 
Names of the Mother), she is referred to as "Maha-maya" and "Mula-
prakriti" (primordial matter). And yet, she is also seen as the 
universal Mother of Mercy and Compassion. In "The Mahatma Letters" 
this power is associated with Buddhi in its active state.

HPB has this to say about the similarities between the Buddhist and 
Hindu views of the Divine Feminine (BCW, vol. VI):

"We may add a word or two in explanation of a previous passage, 
referring to Kwan-yin. This divine power was finally 
anthropomorphized by the Chinese Buddhist ritualists into a distinct 
double-sexed deity with a thousand hands and a thousand eyes, and 
called Kwan-shai-yin Bodhisattwa, the Voice-Deity, but in reality 
meaning the voice of the ever-present latent divine consciousness in 
man; the voice of his real Self, which can be fully evoked and heard 
only through great moral purity. Hence Kwan-yin is said to be the son 
of Amitâbha Buddha, who generated that Saviour, the merciful 
Bodhisattwa, the "Voice" or the "Word" that is universally diffused, 
the "Sound" which is eternal. It has the same mystical meaning as the 
Vâch of the Brâhmans. While the Brâhmans maintain the eternity of the 
Vedas from the eternity of "sound," the Buddhists claim by synthesis 
the eternity of Amitâbha, since he was the first to prove the 
eternity of the Self-born, Kwan-yin. Kwan-yin is the Vâchisvara or 
Voice-Deity of the Brâhmans. Both proceed from the same origin as the 
Logos of the neo-platonic Greeks; the "manifested deity" and 
its "voice" being found in man's Self, his conscience; Self being the 
unseen Father, and the "voice of Self" the Son; each being the 
relative and the correlative of the other. Both Vâchisvara and Kwan-
yin had, and still have, a prominent part in the Initiation Rites and 
Mysteries in the Brâhmanical and Buddhist esoteric doctrines."

The Dalai Lama, as part of his teaching to the world, sometimes 
imparts what is known as "Avalokiteshvara Sadhana" which he himself 
perfoms in his life everyday. Central to this sadhana (spiritual 
practice) is the realisation of Emptiness-Compassion (Sunyata) as the 
ultimate reality.

Maya and Sunyata may indeed, Katinka, be two views of the same 
reality: a benign Power at the heart of the universe which works for 
good and for the liberation of all sentient beings from the heresy of 
separateness.


Pedro