I recently got around to reading a book that I've had for years but for some reason never got very far into. The book is called "The Tao of Physics" by Fritjof Capra, and I find it so amazing that I've had to erase this paragraph twice already to keep from completely digressing from the actual point of this entry.
Rather than talk about all the deep implications of the text, this rant is about two words I came across that I really liked. I find both of these words to be beautiful for some hidden reason, and I would love to name my daughters after them.
The words/names are Lila and Maya. Here is why I love them:
"The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God--'sacrifice' in the original sense of the 'making sacred'--whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour.
"Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and he performs this feat with his 'magic creative power', which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya--one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy--has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the 'might', or 'power', of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad of forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya.
"Maya, therefore, does not mean that the world is an illusion, as is often wrongly stated. The illusion merely lies in our point of view, if we think that the shapes and structures, things and events, around us are realities of nautre, instead of realizing that they are concepts of our measuring and categorizing minds. Maya is the illusion of taking these concepts for reality, of confusing the map with the territory.
"In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid, and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play..."
Just two words that I found beautiful.
(later: at first I liked the original meaning of maya, the magical creative power of the universe, and I still love that meaning, but the fact that the word has evolved to mean something else makes me happy also. Being under the spell of maya reminds me of some of my other favourite words for some reason, like shimmering, chimera, and quicksilver, all of which have a magical, maya-like feel to them (to me anyway).)
Rather than talk about all the deep implications of the text, this rant is about two words I came across that I really liked. I find both of these words to be beautiful for some hidden reason, and I would love to name my daughters after them.
The words/names are Lila and Maya. Here is why I love them:
"The basic recurring theme in Hindu mythology is the creation of the world by the self-sacrifice of God--'sacrifice' in the original sense of the 'making sacred'--whereby God becomes the world which, in the end, becomes again God. This creative activity of the Divine is called lila, the play of God, and the world is seen as the stage of the divine play. Like most of Hindu mythology, the myth of lila has a strong magical flavour.
"Brahman is the great magician who transforms himself into the world and he performs this feat with his 'magic creative power', which is the original meaning of maya in the Rig Veda. The word maya--one of the most important terms in Indian philosophy--has changed its meaning over the centuries. From the 'might', or 'power', of the divine actor and magician, it came to signify the psychological state of anybody under the spell of magic play. As long as we confuse the myriad of forms of the divine lila with reality, without perceiving the unity of Brahman underlying all these forms, we are under the spell of maya.
"Maya, therefore, does not mean that the world is an illusion, as is often wrongly stated. The illusion merely lies in our point of view, if we think that the shapes and structures, things and events, around us are realities of nautre, instead of realizing that they are concepts of our measuring and categorizing minds. Maya is the illusion of taking these concepts for reality, of confusing the map with the territory.
"In the Hindu view of nature, then, all forms are relative, fluid, and ever-changing maya, conjured up by the great magician of the divine play. The world of maya changes continuously, because the divine lila is a rhythmic, dynamic play..."
Just two words that I found beautiful.
(later: at first I liked the original meaning of maya, the magical creative power of the universe, and I still love that meaning, but the fact that the word has evolved to mean something else makes me happy also. Being under the spell of maya reminds me of some of my other favourite words for some reason, like shimmering, chimera, and quicksilver, all of which have a magical, maya-like feel to them (to me anyway).)
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[Edited on Apr 29, 2004 8:34PM]
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