Carpe Diem #706, Delusion

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

Before I start with our new episode, delusion, I first will explain why I have removed 5-7-5 from the Header and replaced it with "short-long-short". As you all know recently I published a few posts about the 5-7-5 rule of haiku. This 5-7-5 rule IS part of haiku, but I have other ideas about that rule, but that idea brought disunity to our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai family and that's for sure not how I see our Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. We are a community of very different individuals and that is what makes our Haiku Kai. Diversity and wonderful people are our base and I love to make this community of haiku poets a steady community in which everyone, every individual can write/compose his/her haiku as they love to do it and that's why I removed 5-7-5 from the Header. With this explanation I shut the discussion on the 5-7-5 rule. A few last words ... enjoy haiku, it's a wonderful poetry form which is binding us together ... we all love to write and share haiku.

We are on our way to find peace of mind and therefore we are exploring the Bhagavad Gita and today it's all about delusion. Arjuna standing in the middle of the two armies has a conversation with Krishna. Arjuna is disillusioned as he sees the armies in which he has friends, relatives and family standing against each other for battle. Krishna tries to take away the delusion of Arjuna.

Krishna says that whatever exists is nothing but Himself. He is the cause of the appearance of the universe and all things in it. Everything is strung on Him like clusters of gems on a string. He is the essence, substance and substratum of everything, whether visible or invisible. Although everything is in Him, yet He transcends everything as the actionless Self. Prakriti or Nature is made up of the three Gunas or qualities—Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. These three qualities delude the soul and make it forget its true nature, which is one with God. This delusion, termed Maya, can only be removed by the Grace of the Lord Himself.

As I re-read this than another idea/concept of Maya comes in mind and than I am confused, because in the above quote we read that Maya is delusion, but in the Upanishads I read a completely different concept:

Māyā pre-exists and co-exists with Brahman – the Ultimate Principle, Consciousness. Maya is perceived reality, one that does not reveal the hidden principles, the true reality. Maya is unconscious, Atman is conscious. Maya is the literal, Brahman is the figurative Upādāna – the principle, the cause. Maya is born, changes, evolves, dies with time, from circumstances, due to invisible principles of nature, state the Upanishads. Atman-Brahman is eternal, unchanging, invisible principle, unaffected absolute and resplendent consciousness. Maya is "the indifferent aggregate of all the possibilities of emanatory or derived existences, pre-existing with Brahman", just like the possibility of a future tree pre-exists in the seed of the tree.
I wonder ... can it be that Hinduism is a religion with contradictions? That makes Hinduism as complex as it is. And it becomes very clear that "peace of mind" is not an easy task as Arjuna is experiencing in the Bhagavad Gita.

Can I say that there is a connection with Christianity in this idea of delusion? I don't know but the last words of the first quote "This delusion can only be removed by the Grace of the Lord Himself". Is this delusion of the same level as forgiveness?

peace of mind
lotuses reach for the sun
growing from the dark

© Chèvrefeuille

Not a strong haiku I think, but ... it's a difficult matter to catch delusion in a haiku ....

This episode is open for your submissions tonight at 7.00 PM (CET) and will remain open until April 16th at noon (CET). I will (try to) publish our next episode, a new GW-post based on a haiku by our featured haiku poetess Kala Ramesh (a 'double' episode), later on. For now .... have fun!