<P> The contextual meaning of Maya in Atharvaveda is "power of creation", not illusion . Gonda suggests the central meaning of Maya in Vedic literature is, "wisdom and power enabling its possessor, or being able itself, to create, devise, contrive, effect, or do something". Maya stands for anything that has real, material form, human or non-human, but that does not reveal the hidden principles and implicit knowledge that creates it . An illustrative example of this in Rig veda VII. 104.24 and Atharva veda VIII. 4.24 where Indra is invoked against the Maya of sorcerers appearing in the illusory form--like a fata morgana--of animals to trick a person . </P> <P> The Upanishads describe the universe, and the human experience, as an interplay of Purusha (the eternal, unchanging principles, consciousness) and Prakṛti (the temporary, changing material world, nature). The former manifests itself as Ātman (Soul, Self), and the latter as Māyā . The Upanishads refer to the knowledge of Atman as "true knowledge" (Vidya), and the knowledge of Maya as "not true knowledge" (Avidya, Nescience, lack of awareness, lack of true knowledge). Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, states Ben - Ami Scharfstein, describes Maya as "the tendency to imagine something where it does not exist, for example, atman with the body". To the Upanishads, knowledge includes empirical knowledge and spiritual knowledge, complete knowing necessarily includes understanding the hidden principles that work, the realization of the soul of things . </P> <P> Hendrick Vroom explains, "The term Maya has been translated as' illusion,' but then it does not concern normal illusion . Here' illusion' does not mean that the world is not real and simply a figment of the human imagination . Maya means that the world is not as it seems; the world that one experiences is misleading as far as its true nature is concerned ." Lynn Foulston states, "The world is both real and unreal because it exists but is' not what it appears to be' ." According to Wendy Doniger, "to say that the universe is an illusion (māyā) is not to say that it is unreal; it is to say, instead, that it is not what it seems to be, that it is something constantly being made . Māyā not only deceives people about the things they think they know; more basically, it limits their knowledge ." </P> <P> Māyā pre-exists and co-exists with Brahman--the Ultimate Principle, Consciousness . Maya is perceived reality, one that does not reveal the hidden principles, the true reality . Maya is unconscious, Atman is conscious . Maya is the literal, Brahman is the figurative Upādāna--the principle, the cause . Maya is born, changes, evolves, dies with time, from circumstances, due to invisible principles of nature, state the Upanishads . Atman - Brahman is eternal, unchanging, invisible principle, unaffected absolute and resplendent consciousness . Maya concept in the Upanishads, states Archibald Gough, is "the indifferent aggregate of all the possibilities of emanatory or derived existences, pre-existing with Brahman", just like the possibility of a future tree pre-exists in the seed of the tree . </P>

The world is not what it seems meaning in hindi