Professor K. R. Sundararajan: In terms of teaching, I have often faced problems explaining the Hindu doctrine of maya, especially in its understanding of life as "illusory." I have similar problems when I speak of the world as lila (God's Play) and try to emphasise the "purposelessness" of God's created world as a consequence of its being God's Divine Play. How can I best teach these concepts to our students in the United States?

Sri Chinmoy: The Hindu doctrine uses the term '/maya" which means 'illusion'. It has been the Hindu belief, right from the very birth of the Hindu philosophy, that the world is an illusion. The Hindu spiritual figures, the Hindu philosophers and some of the Hindu thinkers get tremendous pleasure in telling the world that it is nothing but an illusion. Their philosophy is: why pay so much attention, or even any attention, to something that is unreal?

I wish to say that it is the height of our stupidity to say or feel that we have more wisdom or understanding than the Transcendental and Universal God. We are ready to pray to God, we are ready to devote ourselves to our idea of Him, but we are not ready to accept God's creation as something real. If we believe that we are praying to a God who is real, then how can we believe that His creation is unreal? How can we separate God's reality from God?

Maya has another meaning. It means 'fleeting, impermanent, temporary'. The things that we see or we do or we are in the physical world do not last permanently. Therefore, some people describe the physical world as unreal. But the outer reality does not require immortality. Although the highest reality is infinite, eternal and immortal, reality can also be short-lived, just as Infinity can be infinitely tiny as well as infinitely vast. Reality can be short-lived and reality can be long-term. Again, reality can be immortal. A flower that lasts only for a day is not unreal. A human being who lives for 80 years is not unreal. They are temporary; therefore, you might describe them as illusory. They are real, but limited, impermanent.

Some philosophers are of the opinion that only that which lasts forever is real. But if God's Will is to create something permanent or to create something that will last only for a short time that is His choice. Both things are still His creations. He is at once the Creator and the creation, the Player and the play, the impersonal and the personal, the invisible and the visible, the known and the unknown, the real and the unreal.

No matter how hard we try to define God, we cannot. To define is to limit, and God is without limits. God is Eternity's Child playing in His own Infinity's Heart-Garden. As a little child gets satisfaction, abundant satisfaction, when he plays with his friends, even so, God the Child-Player likes to play with His child-friend-creations. God is one, but He wants to enjoy Himself in countless ways and in countless forms. And He does this through His Cosmic Play, through His lila. You and I and all of your students are God's creation-friends, although we may not understand the purpose of God's creation or our role in it.