Maya in the Advaita Vedanta of Sankaracharya - Artur Isenberg

The lofty system of thought reared by Acharya Sri Sankara might be summed up—and inevitably oversimplified—as follows: "Only one Entity is ultimately real," –– Nirguna-Brahman, of which nothing positive can be predicated, since to do so would be to limit it. Of it, we can only say "neti, neti" ("not this, not this").

From this ineffable Entity everything else is derived. The entire cosmos, the phenomenal universe, including our egos, is derived from it "like the spiderweb from the spider." This is the result of maya.

© Tapovan Prasad (March, 2002) published by Chinmaya Mission, # 2, 13th Avenue, Harrington Road, Chetput, Chennai 600 031. Reprinted with permission.

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