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Subrat SaurabhAuthor of Kuch Woh Pal
When beholding the world around you, have you ever asked yourself what are all these that I am seeing? From where did these come from and where will they go? How and with what material is this universe of celestial bodies and sentient beings created? Since ancient times philosophers and scientists have been trying to solve this puzzle of creation. While to most this world is real, to the Sunyavadi Buddhists and the Advaitin philosophers, this world is unreal. The world-appearance is only the illusion of Maya. But what is Maya? How is it bewildering me? Is it something apart from me or is it something within or inherent in me? Furthermore, how is it not only concealing but also distorting the reality of the world as well as my reality? Mayatattva – The Reality of Maya is an attempt to understand the enigma known as Maya through the writings of Paramhangsa Soham Swami.
Soham Swami
Paramhangsa Soham Swami (1858-1918) was an Advaitin monk. Known as Shyamakanta Bandopadhyay in his pre-monastic life, he was famous across the Bengal Presidency in the last two decades of the 19th century for his unusual vocation – wrestling with tigers. His goal was to instill fearlessness in the minds of people of a subjugated nation and prepare them for the war of independence. At 41, abandoning wealth, family, and fame, he became an ascetic and realized the Truth of Self in Samadhi. To eradicate superstition and social, religious, and gender-based discriminations that were obstacles to the development of society, in the last ten years of his life, he wrote copiously on Advaitavad or the philosophy of non-dualism.
