Question 5. What is the nature of maya?
Sri Ramana Maharshi: Maya is that which makes us regard as nonexistent the Self, the Reality, which is always and everywhere present, all-pervasive and Self-luminous, and as existent the individual soul (jiva), the world (jagat), and God (para) which have beenconclusively proved to be nonexistent at all times and places.
~Sri Ramana Maharishi, Upadesa Manjari (Spiritual Instruction)
Tom’s comments:
ie. Maya is that which makes you think there is no Self or Ultimate Reality, but makes you think there are individual persons (jivas), there is a world (jagat), and there is a force that governs these…When in fact the opposite is true.
Tom Das 
“What about when the mind no longer falls back into egoic desire or laya?
III 46. When the mind does not lapse into inactivity [laya] and is not distracted by desires, that is to say, when it remains unshakeable and does not give rise to appearances, it verily becomes Brahman.
Here we are given a pragmatic definition of self-realisation or Brahman – ie. when ignorance no longer remains, when the mind is still and no longer deviates and follows egoic desires, where the grasping mind has essentially died.”
We are left with two options here. Is Nirvikalpa samadhi essentially deep sleep where one finally realized that the Self knows there were no objects and thoughts whatsoever in deep sleep and eventually realized the Self is beyond the four states (waking world, dreaming world, deep sleep world and Turiya), or is it actually a form of Savikalpa samadhi where the “I” is still there experiencing nothingness? Like contentless dreaming where there are no perceptions of objects and no discriminating thoughts (such as “it is like this, it is like that”) at all?
LikeLike
Hi Jeet
See here:
and here:
Hope these answer your question
Namaste
Tom
LikeLike
“What about when the mind no longer falls back into egoic desire or laya?
III 46. When the mind does not lapse into inactivity [laya] and is not distracted by desires, that is to say, when it remains unshakeable and does not give rise to appearances, it verily becomes Brahman.
Here we are given a pragmatic definition of self-realisation or Brahman – ie. when ignorance no longer remains, when the mind is still and no longer deviates and follows egoic desires, where the grasping mind has essentially died.”
We are left with two options here. Is Nirvikalpa samadhi essentially deep sleep where one finally realized that the Self knows there were no objects and thoughts whatsoever in deep sleep and eventually realized the Self is beyond the four states (waking world, dreaming world, deep sleep world and Turiya), or is it actually a form of Savikalpa samadhi where the “I” is still there experiencing nothingness? Like contentless dreaming where the “I” don’t perceive any forms and don’t have any discriminating thoughts such as “it is like this, it is like that” during the experience?
LikeLike
Hi Jeet
See here:
and here:
Hope these answer your question
Namaste
Tom
LikeLike