Maya, Existence and Non-Existence

"When the Hindu says the world is Maya, at once people get the idea that the world is an illusion. This interpretation has some basis, as coming through the Buddhistic philosophers, because there was one section of philosophers who did not believe in the external world at all. But the Maya of Vedanta, in its last developed form is neither Idealism nor Realism, nor is it a theory. It is a simple statement of facts - what we are, and what we see around us."

"The one peculiar attribute we find in time, space, and causation is that they cannot exist sepearte from other things. Try to think of space without colour, or limits, or any connection with the things around - just abstract space. You cannot; you have to think of it as the space between two limits, or between three objects. It has to be connected with some object to have any existence. So with time; you cannot have any ideas of abstract time, but you have to take two events, one preceding, and the other succeeding, and join the two events by the ideas of succession. Time depends on two events, just as space has to be related to outside objects. And the idea of causation is inseparable from time and space."

"As no man can jump out of his own self, so no man can go beyond the limits that have been put upon him by the laws of time and space. Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time and space, would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these things."

"What does the statement of the existence of the world mean, then? "This world has no existence." What is meant by that? It means that it has no absolute existence. It exists only in relation to my mind, to your mind, and to the mind of everyone else."

"We see this world with the five senses, but if we had another sense, we would see in it something more. If we had yet another sense, it would appear to be as something still different. It has, therefore, no real existence; it has no unchangeable, immovable, infinite existence. Nor can it be called non-existence, seeing that it exists, and we have to work in and through it. It is a misture of existence and non-existence."

-- Swami Vivikenanda --
("Teachings of Swami Vivikenanda," Advaita Ashrama Publishings, pp. 198-199.)