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1. What is Maya? What actions are Maya? Maya is where one is bound to Pain and Pleasure, and one acts in Ego. (Sri Rag M. 3)
2. Maya and attachment are also God’s Creation; He Himself deludes us (through them) The Egocentric does (pious) acts, but knows not the Lord and wastes His life away.
(Sri Rag M. 3)
3. Nanak: They, who Dwelt on the Lord’s Name, are eternally in communion with the Lord.
(Maya is in the service of the Master and she serves too the Servants of the Lord. (Var of Sri Rag M. 4, Shlokas)
4. One’s mind wanders, lured by Maya, and yet it clings to it; He, whom Thou Savest, O Lord, from seeking Maya, alone is imbued with the Love of Thy Name. (Shloka of Gauri Bavan Akhri M. 5)
5. Maya is like a mirage, the mind’s delusion, the deer’s craze, the (passing) shade of a tree.
She is mercurial of mind, and in the end, goes not along with us. (Bilawal M. 5)
6. I tried to grasp (Maya) with care, but she eluded my grasp: Howsoever I loved her, she kept not my company for long. Says Nanak, "When I abandoned and discarded her with contempt, Then she paid obeisance to me and fell at my feet." (Ramkali M. 5)
7. This Maya makes us forake the Lord: and love for the Other wells up in the mind. Says Nanak: "They, who are Attuned to the Lord, by the Guru’s Grace, Attain to the Lord in the midst of Maya." (Ramkali M. 3, Anand)
8. (Maya), the woman, gives birth to (the mind), her husband, and this son (of the mind) overwhelms even his father, (the Soul), And makes her suck the milk (of Desire) shorn of the breasts (of Bliss). See Ye, O men, such are the ways of the Kali-age, That the Son marries his own Mother. Lo, without feet, this mind jumps, And it laughs without a mouth. Though in essence ever Awake, it Sleeps, And without a jar, it churns the curds. The mind is a cow without the teats: It journeys out and afar, though the Distance (between it and God) is so short. It finds not the Path without the True Guru; This is the Essence of all Wisdom that Kabir proclaims. (Rag Basant: The Word of Bhakta Kabirji)
9. O Fly, O Maya, O thou creation of God ! Thou sittest only on Dirt and lickest the ‘sweet’ Poison of Illusion. Thou stayest nowhere: this is thy state I’ve seen with my Eyes; Save for the Saint, thou hast affected everyone, for the Saints keep ever on the side of God. All creatures are bewitched by thee, but save for the Saints no one has known thy bare reality. Nanak, the Lord’s Servant, is Attuned to the Lord’s Praise, and sees the Lord’s Presence, Enshrining the (Guru’s) Word in his Consciousness. (Sarang M. 5)
10. Lo, Maya dances its devil-dance and yokes everyone to Vice; she entices away even the sun and the moon: And when tinkle her ankle-bells, Evil rankles with us; its myriad gestures bewitch and beguile any one but God. (Pause)
She has affected the three Worlds, and outer discipline erases not its effect; and men, involved in Strife, are intoxicated with its wind and are tossed about as on the high seas. Only the Lord’s Saints are Saved, and are Delivered they of the Yama’s Noose; So Contemplate thou Him alone, whose Name Santifies even the Sinners.
(Sarang M. 5)