Peaceful scenery. Source: Pexels
Narada and Maya:
My re-telling of Narada’s experience with Maya is relatively accurate to the original story that’s found in the Devi-Bhagvata Purana. Narada’s origin is told in the Mahabharata and is portrayed as a wanderer who traverses the whole universe. My story changed some dialogue and added greater detail to Narada’s illusion as well as the ultimate destruction of the illusion. This was done in order for the readers to feel a similarly connected to Narada’s material world and lose focus on the true reality with Lord Vishnu. My re-telling of the story conveys the same central idea that Maya serves as an illusion for mankind.
Although Narada’s experience was an illusion, his world was not unreal. Rather, Narada’s illusionary world, which included his family, children, and land, becomes his primary focus. Narada forgets his commitment to Lord Vishnu, which is the true, objective reality. In both the beginning and the end, Lord Vishnu remained thirsty and asked for a glass of water, demonstrating the objective, unchanging reality. Narada’s worldly pleasures made it so that his experiences became his world, and he had forgotten that the entire world was caused through Vishnu’s actions. Furthermore, Narada can now understand the powerful grasp Maya holds on mankind.
My re-telling of “The Frog in the Well” expanded more on the environment and emphasized how limited the frog’s experience was by living in the well. I also described the frog in greater detail in order to assist readers in envisioning the story, and I set the well in an abandoned village to make the frog’s life truly isolated from the rest of the world. The narrative illuminates Maya in a different perspective than Narada’s experience. We, the readers, can easily see how the frog’s life has been an illusion, but the frog remains ignorant and narrow-minded. Rather than opening up to understand a world beyond the well, the frog refuses to consider anything beyond its perception. Maya grips onto the frog, but unlike Narada’s world, the illusion isn’t a magical experience. Rather, the frog’s own perceptions can produce an unreal world. Since the well is everything the frog knows, his world remains bound to the well. Likewise, our lived experiences in this physical reality may make us narrow-minded and refuse to consider other spiritual realities. Both the well and our own life experiences are not unreal, but they are an illusion that holds us back from greater reality. In the frog’s case, the greater reality is the jungle and the rest of the world; in our case, it’s to realize Brahman.