“The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.”
-Bodhidharma
Kabir – The couplet
कबीर माया पापिनी,फंध ले बैठी हाटी ।
सब जग तो फंदे पद्य, गया कबीरा काटी ॥
Transliterated:
Kabir Maaya Papini, Phandh Le Baithi Haati |
Sab Jag Tou Phandhe Padya, Gaya Kabeera Kaati ||
Translation:
Says Kabir – delusion is the origin of all sin, it has its noose at the ready in the marketplace (social meeting ground)|
All are caught in the noose, no exception – but Kabir himself has cut the noose (and found true freedom) ||
My understanding:
We usually associate delusion with our perception of life and its situations. We then proceed to measure everything through the scale of good and bad, label it and then pat ourselves on the back for having completed another task.
But life is not so very black and white. What is good for one is not right or sufficient for another. So karmas actually work to erase other karmas, while others pile onto the accumulation without end. For those who presume that the religious work/sacrifices they practice are the highest good, they fail to realize that this only effectively traps the being into an endless cycle of life and death, as expatiated in the Mundaka Upanishad:
tasmāc ca devā _bhaudhā _samprasūtāḥ _sādhyā _manuṣyāḥ _paśavo vayāṁsi,
prāṇāpānau vrīhi-yavau tapaś _ca śraddhā _satyam brahma-caryaṁ _vidhiś _ca | (1:2:7)
All the sacrifices performed by the eighteen people connected with them are transient and unsafe boats in crossing this Samsara. These actions are inferior. Those ignorant ones who glorify and consider as good these actions go to birth and death again and again.
Religion is not always spiritual. Material possession and temporal happiness are the most sought-after objectives of the majority of the world’s populace – and this is what most religious offering and training seems to cater – nay, pander – to. As a result, most religious acts culminate in more mental and psychological involvement, not freedom. Most of our “religious”activity takes us to “heaven” as a pat on our back for our good karma, and then dumps us back on earth when the bank account is exhausted.
Just because a religious act is directed towards God, or done as an offering to God does not guarantee that it will lead to God. More often than not, since the offering is done to God with a stated intent of finding some more mundane worldly objective, it actually leads us AWAY from God and deeper into the labyrinthine overly complicated and never truly resolved physical worldly existence.
Remaining within the folds of ignorance, convinced of the solidity of our learning and treating it as the ultimate armor, we think of ourselves as “wise and learned” and blithely ignore the true reality of our folly, So says the next verse in the same Manduka Upanishad:
avidyāyām antare vartamānāḥ svayaṁ dhīrāḥ paṇḍitam manyamānāḥ,
janghanyamānāḥ pariyanti mūḍhāḥ, andhenaiva nīyamānā yathāndhāḥ | 1:2:8
Drowned in the midst of ignorance, but thinking themselves great and learned, the deluded ones, attacked from all sides by decay, disease and death and several other miseries, turn round and round in the wheel of Samsara like blind men guided by blind men.
Delusion is indeed the most potent form of Vishnu maaya – the delusion and misdirection of nature and creation. Stay always wary of its traps, pitfalls and cunning misleading endeavors. Understand that if it is complicated, it is a fruit of this tree of delusion. Walk away, give it up. Opt for the simple explanation, and stay attached to simplicity and reality – always!