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'Am I a body having a spiritual experience, or a spirit having an embodied experience?' I write about the deep heart of ordinary life from the place where body and spirit come together. Essays and ideas from yoga, somatics, tantra and meditation.

Magic and Mystery

Maya and the Virtual World: Part II

Vaishali Iyer

May 30, 2023

This is Part II of a series about maya and technology. Read Part I here.

In my previous post, I began to weave together the idea of maya from Asian religious philosophy with the virtual world of technology all around us. That post focused on the more negative aspects of maya—namely, deception and delusion. In this post and the next, I want to bring out the hidden positives, or the joyful side of maya, through a number of metaphors. These metaphors are commonly used in Asian religions and philosophies to point to the true nature of the world and reality, so you may recognize some of them. In this post: magic and mystery. In the next post: dreams and play.

Maya as magic

Contemplate the entire universe
As a magic show
On the grandest scale imaginable.
Fabulous art, an immense painting in motion.
God is a magician whirling galaxies of fire,
Juggling atoms, planets, and us.
Everything, everything is fleeting.

Meditating on this magic,
Great happiness rises in the heart.

—Radiance Sutras 79

One way maya is expressed is in the sense of the universe as magic. It is not ultimately real and yet we can still delight in it, participate in it, enjoy it. The gorgeousness of this notion is that it brings us a deep sense of wonder and a light heart. When we live this way, all of creation unfolds before us like a grand drama, or an intriguing and provocative movie. Sometimes the magic is bright and funny, other times it’s dark and dangerous, but it’s magic all the same. Best of all, we can be here, revelling in the whole show, without getting stuck, attached or addicted.

Maya as magic brings us to the timeless truth of impermanence, without heaviness and sorrow. Things don’t last, they’re not as they seem, they’re not as real and solid as we think they are—and yet we can wonder, and be enchanted, and more importantly, we can let go and enjoy the ride. What a privilege it is to be here, and witness this.

How would it feel to embody this attitude in your life? To me it’s a burst of laughter, a rueful shake of my head, and a weight off my shoulders.

Magic is about the unexpected, and a magician’s job is to touch the unknown and bring the thrill of it to life. He is meant to push the boundaries of what we believe is possible, and show us the way out of limiting ideas and thoughts. The magician’s charge is also to evoke enchantment and wide-eyed wonder, to make you think but that’s not possible, how did she do it? There is pure, unadulterated joy in that, as well as a felt connection to the great mystery of all things. You never know what could happen. All possibilities are open and waiting to be born.

When was the last time you felt this way? I confess I’m not as open to it as I’d like to be. But sometimes, when I experience synchronicity, I trace it back. Then, just for a moment, I glimpse the vast matrix behind everyday occurences and am awestruck.

Ways In and Out: The Magic of Virtuality

Now that we are onto the positive faces of maya, our ways out are also ways in. How do we bring the metaphor of magic to life in everyday situations? And how does it help us navigate the virtual world?

Rmember what is real

We all know intellectually that the virtual world is not real, yet we act as if it is. Perhaps this what drives our societal urge to bring the virtual and ‘real’ worlds together. As I suggested in my previous post though, all this does is bring us closer to insanity. We are looking for reality where it doesn’t exist, and confusing ourselves in the process.

Maya points out that the same dynamic is at play on a larger scale too. We may understand in our minds that the universe is not ultimately real, but we don’t act as if we truly believe that. We still get invested, get hurt, stick to things and people, entrap ourselves and generally struggle our way through life. The way out is to recognize the unreality of all this and re-orient to what is truly real.

In other words, the virtual world is just another layer of the maya that we need to learn to see through, with a healthy appreciation for its skill and mastery of magic. I believe that all the technology around us is potentially an invitation to look more deeply at what we believe to be real and unreal, worthy or unworthy of our attention and energy. It’s a chance for us to explore and wake up to the teaching of maya, and in that way it’s a gift waiting to be opened.

The balance of yes and no

Maya as magic teaches us how to enjoy and detach at the same time, a priceless skill in our world of technological addiction. Lately I am exploring this with beautiful people on screens, because that’s where I tend to get sucked in. Can I appreciate a gorgeous face and have a sense of humour about wanting to see it over and over again? Or can I regard it as a fleeting wonder, something to cherish in the moment when it arises—and then let it dissolve?

As I practice this way, I catch myself becoming more aware of the beauty all around me, as if my appreciation has bled off-screen. I’m delighting in gazing at the colours on the train, the way sunlight plays through the trees, the vivid plumage on the birds outside my window. Maybe this is how engaging wisely with the virtual world can bring us closer to reality, closer to life—rather than disconnect and disembody us.

This is a wonderful video from Ram Dass about how to work with addiction from a spiritual perspective. What I appreciated most was his emphasis on just doing your practice, letting go of ideas of success or failure, and seeing what happens.

What’s the trick?

Virtual technologies have their own magic, one that beguiles us beyond all reason. Much of their power rests on their ability to capture and retain our attention by trickery (another definition of the word maya). The endless scrolling layout now adopted by most webpages and apps, and the autoplay functions on video players come to mind. Netflix openly admits that their biggest competitor is not other streaming services, but the human need for sleep. Like an abusive partner that doesn’t want you to leave, part of their modus operandi is to obscure the way out, so you have no clear exit point at which to break the cycle of consumption (eg. the bottom of a webpage, or the end credits of a movie). Ultimately, the boundary being erased is not only the one between one piece of content and another, but between us and the devices.

When you watch a magic trick (or a movie), there is a delicious back-and-forth between believing and knowing, possibility and impossibility, that comes alive in you. But when it’s over, you realize that what you saw wasn’t real, and you return to your senses. This is a healthy and natural rhythm, and it works much better than either refusing to appreciate the magic at all (aversion/denial) or getting trapped in it (attachment/escapism). Instead, we let ourselves fall into it, and then wake up from it, again and again. It is an awakening process, like mind training and spiritual development. All you need to do is be aware and let it unfold.

Structure and Creativity

Virtual technologies are powered by an underlying structure that gives them a formulaic, standardized quality. Because technology stems from a mechanical, rationalist understanding of the world, it inevitably contains the flavor of machine, of deadness and rigidity. The Algorithm is a prime example of this. Nevertheless, because we are human, we have thus far been able to use technology to express our innate and boundless creative tendencies.

However, the more we tend in the direction of certainty and order, the less room there is for spontaneity and freedom. We see this now in the giant censorship apparatus, as well as in the sameness and blandness of online content. True magic is an art. It involves going to the edge of what we believe and then taking another step. It’s about bringing something unknown into the known world. It is not mechanical or rational but organic, alive and intuitive.

Recently I read an article by astrologer Frederick WOODRUFFwhere he argues that the reason we consume so much digital media is because we are “starving for the space of our own imagination”. We are out of touch with our own abilities to dream and create, to visualise and tell stories—so we look to the creations of others and try to imbibe those instead. But it doesn’t really work, because what we long for is the process and the act of creating itself. Imagination is a necessary human behavior, like daydreaming. We need it for our psychological health.

There is such depth to what we can imagine, when we give ourselves time and space to do so. It cleanses and nourishes the psyche in a way that other people’s creations can’t, because it comes from within. Watching someone else’s idea, as marvellous and beautiful as it may be, is a bit like hearing an echo instead of the music itself. There is definitely a time and place for that (see below) but not to the exclusion of our own deep expression.

I believe we need to give ourselves time to indulge in imagination. In a pre-technological world, this would’ve happened spontaneously because there was nothing much to do while you travelled, in between activities, and at night once it was dark. I’m not saying we have to go back to living like that, but we can take our cues from that lifestyle. For example, you could encourage yourself to daydream while you commute, during breaks, or before going to sleep. (You may notice that these are all times when we reflexively reach for a device.)

Another possibility is to recall and write down your dreams, which come from the same place as your imagination. Or you could turn imagination into a more active practice like a meditation, creative doodling or journalling. The most important thing is for it to be free-form, unstructured and totally natural. No one else is going to see or even know what you are imagining, so let it be completely your own.

This is a baby step towards another way out that many people already use, which is to take up a creative hobby: something that you do with your hands, or your body, that brings something new into the world. Another way that the word maya is understood is as creative power or shakti. It is the outpouring of divine creative energy that forms the universe. When you create, you are simultaneously a participant and a witness to the maya, both inside and outside it.

Essence and Rhythm

I have found in my experiments with music, TV shows, videos and social media that I go through phases. First I become intensely drawn to something, spending a lot of time with it. I’ll listen to the same song hundreds of times, feeling my body attune to its rhythm over days, weeks or even months. It’s as if the music contains some essential nutrient I’m trying to absorb and awaken in myself. With TV, I wander around the world’s cultures and absorb their ways of speaking, dressing, interacting, the things that matter to them, how characters communicate, their creative solutions to life’s problems…

Inside whatever I’m drawn to, there is a seed of a message or realization. And once it blossoms, I can see beyond the content to the patterns behind it—what it’s pointing to for me. When I understand and integrate that idea, I am no longer drawn to that form and I move on to something else.

It has been transforming for me to recognize these unconscious currents in my relationship with virtual content, because I no longer have to deny myself or indulge recklessly and then feel ashamed. Whatever I watch, hear, or read, appeals because it touches a part of me that was dormant and brings it to life. The content is a mirror. When I look into it long enough, I find the essence beneath the forms.

What I’ve described is a kind of developmental cycle that I believe we are all going through constantly. We go through phases not only with entertainment but also with people, places, jobs, basically everything we encounter in the world. At its core, this dynamic reveals to us that whatever we experience, in both the real and the virtual worlds, is insubstantial and ultimately unreal. We are here to meet it, absorb it, and then see through it to what is beyond.

Maya as mystery

Knowledge of maya comes with humility, because it requires we accept that we don’t really have a clue what’s going on. How freeing is it to admit that? We may think we know, but truth and reality are unknown and unknowable. To touch the Great Mystery, we have to let go of what we think and believe.

There is a famous Zen story about a student who goes to visit a teacher to ask for transmission. The moment they sit down, the student starts spouting all kinds of knowledge about this text and that quote, probably hoping to impress the teacher. Meanwhile, the teacher starts to pour him a cup of tea. He keeps pouring and pouring until the cup overflows and the tea spills everywhere. The student is aghast: Master, what are you doing? The teacher says:

You have come here with a mind like this cup, overflowing with ideas and thoughts. There is no space inside you to receive. How can I teach you anything, until you first empty your cup?

This story is usually taken to mean that we have to let go of preconceptions in order to learn anything new. Or in other words, drop the baggage of the past in order to step fully into the present and the future. Cut ties with everything you’re carrying and experience life afresh, in this moment. Pour yourself into the mystery. Then, even in the absence of a teacher, you can still receive transmission, directly from the world.

I see two ways in which an awareness of mystery supports our experiments with virtuality. The first is to allow yourself to not know. Get away from the desire for certainty and control through knowledge, especially the kind of knowledge that you get by reading and watching things on a screen (including this post!). You don’t need to know more things in order to live well—you just need to actually live your life, and learn from your own experience. My mantra for this is: less consumption, more reflection. Or even more simply, quality > quantity.

One of my teachers used to say it’s a powerful spiritual practice to turn off the TV and not watch the news. I’d say it’s become a necessity now, and we could extend that further to all the apps and games and random other digital noise we are bombarded by, especially advertising. This might feel like radical simplicity, or digital minimalism; call it whatever you want. Like the student in the story, make it a practice to empty your (virtual) cup.

The other way is to remember that you don’t know what’s going on and surrender to the uncertainty. All the dire predictions about where things are going and how AI robots will take over the world—they may contain a seed of truth, but they are not the whole story. No matter how well you can recognize patterns, there is always something unpredictable and chaotic about the future. If we make ourselves resilient enough to ride those waves, there may yet be cause for hope.

Final thoughts

Maya is multi-layered. Awakening from it can happen in phases, slow-cooked over time, as well as abruptly, in a flash. Maya is also ever-present. In other words, you can’t escape it, not while you’re still alive in this form and in this limited, relative world. There’s always going to be something you haven’t let go of, something you can’t see.

When I first understood this, I despaired. Then I realised I had been striving for perfection, an ideal that could save me or shield me from the struggles of life. And then I had a good laugh, because getting stuck that way is itself a form of maya, isn’t it? Now that I’ve dropped all that, I’m more able to welcome life as it happens, and to just be my regular, flawed-yet-perfect human self.

Being alive is the process of dissolving what we think we know into what is, over and over again—until we touch the unknown, and unknowable, heart of things. That’s why, in this series, I want to emphasize the experience of dropping beyond beliefs, rather than intellectual understandings of what maya and reality are or aren’t. After all, reality is indescribable, and has nothing to do with what we believe about it. The lovely thing about these metaphors for maya is that they point to a felt quality. You can use them as mental images, or you can take them in so deeply that you discover what it feels like in your skin and bones to live them.

Thank you for reading; this was a long post but hopefully worth it. Let me know in the poll below if you would prefer me to break up long posts like this one into shorter parts, or if you’re OK with this length. (This is my upper limit, so I won’t go any longer than this anyway.)

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts: particularly your ways of seeing magic and mystery in your life, and your ways to be digitally awake. Anything you want to share is welcome.