Maya

Maya is nothing but a difficult snare. People fall into it slowly, imperceptibly. Through someone's words, someone's eyes, or the timbre of a voice.

If you fall under the spell of someone's words, every phrase they speak will seem like poetry to you. If you fall under the spell of someone's voice, every sentence will sound like song. If you fall under the spell of someone's eyes, a single glance into them and you will drown in some deep, unfamiliar ocean. Maya is a terrible affliction!

A person might fall in love suddenly, but they never fall under maya's spell in a sudden moment. Maya takes hold slowly, gradually—and anything built gradually becomes hard as stone. As liquid cement hardens slowly into rock, as a river flowing drop by drop merges into the sea, as a small sapling grows year after year into a massive banyan tree reaching toward heaven, so too does maya grow and grow until it becomes like a deeply rooted, sturdy tree that cannot be uprooted, no matter how much you wish it. A person may abandon themselves if necessary, and yet they cannot abandon maya.

Fall suddenly in love and you can escape just as suddenly. But fall slowly under someone's spell and you will sink like quicksand, and no amount of struggle will pull you free.

Maya is a terrible thing. An old book left carelessly on a shelf for years, eaten by moths—it grieves you. A hair clip worn daily for years, when it breaks and you're about to throw it in the bin, some deep, intimate spell keeps you turning it over in your hands, touching it again and again. The stray dog you saw every day going to the office—when it dies, your heart will wring itself out in the middle of the night. Someone who was never yours at all: fall once under their spell and you will see that they have become your entire world!

Maya is nothing but a difficult snare, and once caught in it, it will coil around you like a serpent, holding you in its grip. You will sink deeper and deeper into it, and find no way out, no matter what. A person can escape every other kind of bondage, but not easily from maya. Maya alone seems to be the eternal form of this world!

This is why, even though so many paths lie open before us to leave, we do not leave. Even though we have so many reasons to let go, we do not let go. Like a frog we withdraw into ourselves, squatting motionless in the same old hole, at peace, unburdened, as if we've nowhere else to be.

Pain may drain the very life from us, but maya—maya remains!