Everything in this universe is Brahman, all pervading, absolute existence, knowledge and bliss. Absolute truth. There is nothing else.
Everything we see, everything we experience in this universe is illusion, all of it is Maya. Only lies.
Maya neither is nor isn’t Brahman for an illusion cannot be the absolute truth and yet Brahman is nonetheless the source of Maya.
Maya has 2 powers, that of veiling and that of projection. A veil of ignorance with imaginations projected upon it:
Vikshepa Shakti, Mayas power of projection, is something we cannot really live without. It is manifest in the names and forms conjured by our minds and enables us to communicate and order our thoughts. We’d be lost without it in this world.
Avarana Shakti, Mayas veiling power, is however something to be done away with. It is manifest in our ignorance and leads to the idea that the names and forms are real, and that we are nothing more than body-mind beings. It conceals the relationship between the illusion and the truth, yet the illusion and the truth are always right there in plain sight.
Lift the veil, see the Self, Atman.
Om Shanti.
“Yogis know that the body is the instrument through which and by which the spirit manifests and works.”
~ Swami Vishnudevananda