Maya:

The power that veils and obscures the true nature of the Self and creates a sense of differentiation. It makes the universal Consciousness, which is One, appear as duality and multiplicity.

(See also: Maya, Yoga, Yoga Dictionary, Siddha Yoga, Siddha Yoga Dictionary)

Maya:

A sanskrit word meaning "worldly illusion". Mistaking the transient for the real. Non-awareness what is true, what is real.

(See also: Maya, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya

1.    That which does not exist and is illusory. The glamors, illusions, or delusions perceived by limited mind.

2.    In Hindu tradition, the Great Cosmic force responsible for the phenomena of material existence.

3.    An ancient Mesoamerican high civilization of which little is known. The term Maya means "mother."

(See also: Maya, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya-sakti - the potency that creates bewilderment, which is responsible for the manifestation of the material world, time, and material activities.

(See also: Maya-sakti, Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya:

Maya (Maayaa). Consort of Vishnu; mother of Mayavi and Dundubhi.

(See also: Maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya:

Maya. A Danava king, who served the gods and demons as their architect and builder.

(See also: Maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

MAYA

Sanskrit: illusion, i.e., the true nature of the world. Matter, according to HPB, as the "veiling spirit."

(See also: MAYA, Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul, )

Daivi-maya - the divine potency of Krsna which acts in the material world to bewilder the living entities who are seeking material enjoyment separate from their eternal and natural relationship with Krsna. This external potency consists of the three qualities of nature: goodness, passion, and ignorance.

(See also: Daivi-maya, Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Maha-maya

See Maya.

(See also: Maha-maya, Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

ananda-maya:

ananda-maya (aanandha-maya). Spiritual bliss.

(See also: ananda-maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

prana-maya:

prana-maya (praana-maya). Made of vital breath.

(See also: prana-maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya: The illusive power of Brahman; the veiling and the projecting power of the universe, the power of Cosmic Illusion..

(See also: Maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

maya:

maya (maayaa). Worldly illusion, mistaking the transient for the real; non-awareness of actuality, appearances masquerading as reality.

(See also: maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya (Sanskrit). Illusion ; the cosmic power which renders phenomenal existence and the perceptions thereof possible. In Hindu philosophy that alone which is changeless and eternal is called reality ; all that which is subject to change through decay and differentiation and which has therefore a begining and an end is regarded as maya - illusion.

(See also: Maya, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

Vishnu-maya:

Vishnu-maya: Divine Power to Delude (BV-44). Vishnu is used for God, since it means , 'present everywhere at all times' (SSS-III)

(See also: Vishnu-maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Vishnu-maya:

Vishnu-maya (-maayaa). Illusory power of God.

(See also: Vishnu-maya, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Sthala Maya (Sanskrit). Gross, concrete and - because differentiated -  an illusion.

(See also: Sthala Maya, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )

ananda-maya kosa:

ananda-maya kosa (aanandha-maya kosha). The sheath of bliss, the innermost sheath of the body.

(See also: ananda-maya kosa, Hinduism, Hinduism Dictionary, Sanskrit Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

anna-maya

According to the Taittiriya Upanishad, the lowest level of consciousness in embodied life, the level in which one lives just to eat.

(See also: anna-maya, Bhakti, Bhakti Yoga, Bhakti Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul)

Maya (Sanskrit) [from the verbal root ma to measure, form]

Illusion, the non-eternal; in Brahmanical philosophy, the fabrication by the human mind of ideas derived from interior and exterior impressions, as it tries to interpret and understand the universe. While the exterior world exists -- or it could not be illusory -- we do not

See clearly and as they actually are that which our mind and senses present to us. A traditional Vedantic illustration says that at twilight a person sees a coiled rope on the ground and springs aside, thinking it is a snake; the rope is there, but no snake.

Thus maya means that our minds are blinded and perverted by our own preconceptions and imperfections, and so does not interpret the world as it is.

"Maya or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition. . . . Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The existences belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.

Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them before or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities. As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached 'reality'; but only when we shall have reached the absolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions produced by Maya" (SD 1:39-40).

Though sometimes used as an equivalent for avidya, maya is properly applicable only to prakriti, which is doomed to disappear at the time of pralaya. It is thus prakriti and its productions or changes (vikaras) which, by reacting against the operations of the consciousness of a perceiving being, casts the perceiver into the bonds of illusions, out of which the deluded being has to strive in order to free himself from the maya with which he is surrounded.

"Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean above which one and the same moon is shining, so our evanescent personalities -- the illusive envelopes of the immortal monad-ego -- twinkle and dance on the waves of Maya. They last and appear, as the thousands of sparks produced by the moon-beams, only so long as the Queen of the Night radiates her lustre on the running waters of life: the period of a Manvantara; and then they disappear, the beams -- symbols of our eternal Spiritual Egos -- alone surviving, re-merged in, and being, as they were before, one with the Mother-Source" (SD 1:237).

(See also: Maya, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Maha Maya (Sanskrit). The great illusion of manifestation. This universe, and all in it in their mutual relation, is called the great Illusion or Mahamaya It is also the usual title given to Gautama the Buddha’s Immaculate Mother - Mayadevi, or the "Great Mystery", as she is called by the Mystics.

(See also: Maha Maya, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary, )