70 - Transcending Maya | Swami Tattwamayananda

-7th chapter: verses 14, 15, 16<br />-The lecture was given by Swami Tattwamayananda on February 12, 2020.<br />-Absolute Reality is the only sat. Vedanta defines something as sat (real) if (1) it remains without change in the past, present and future (2) It is beyond time, space and causation and (3) it remains without change in waking, dream and deep sleep states.<br />-One can look at the river in two ways. One way is to look at the momentary changes – waves, high tides, and low tides. Another is to look upon the waves and tides as constituted by the same water that constitutes the river – they emerge, exist and dissolve in the river. The river is the only reality.<br />-Similarly, behind all everyday challenges, which come and go, there is one Absolute Reality. Every right-thinking person can experience it. Once we become aware of it, we begin to understand the mystery of life, and can remain calm in the midst of life’s challenges.<br />-Maya is the mystery that we experience in daily life, that defies human logic and has no satisfactory answers. For example, we assign permanence to something that we know is inherently impermanent. Maya deludes us into thinking that we are this body, nothing else.<br />-All of us experience Maya in our everyday life. It is beyond logical comprehension, cannot be explained in words or cognized with the mind, and is a great mystery. We understand the relativity of maya only when we come out of it. Describing maya within it is impossible.<br />-Even those who read many scriptures, who teach these scriptures, who expound the highest philosophy – even such people are sometimes bound by Maya. Transcending Maya is a matter of our own evolution, when our scriptural study also defines our actions.<br />-Even an intellectual understanding of Maya and the unreality of sense pleasures, helps us develop a unique spiritual common sense, maturity of outlook and sense of modesty.<br />-14th verse: “Those who devote themselves to me, they transcend Maya.”<br />-Prapatti is the highest state o