What is illusion
He remembered the time when he was in a large city in South India and had attended a public debate where a Marxist leader was pitted against a religious teacher. The Marxist leader who was bespectacled spoke first and went to town saying that the concept of Maya or illusion was a lot of hooey propagated by the religionists to keep the laity in bondage, He pointed at the audience and said “ Look, we are all here sitting and I am behind this table speaking to you. Where is the illusion? You cannot wish away the table, the chair and me or wish yourselves away. So let’s not fool ourselves with all this philosophical double-talk” He continued in this fashion for a full half- hour. It was the turn of the religious teacher to speak next. Announcement by one of the organizers indicated that the religious teacher or ‘Swami’ would speak. There was a hushed silence in the audience and the fact that the Swmiji was well known for his oratorical skill and lucidity of thought had its effect. However there was utter consternation when an announcement was made for a Doctor to come up to the dais as the Swamiji was collapsing with low blood pressure. There was great sympathy for the Swamiji and the audience dispersed when the closure of the meeting was announced. Venky was perturbed with the argument of the first speaker who had debunked the idea of illusion. He was sure the Swamiji would have tackled the matter quite well had he been able to speak that day. Venky felt that he had to express his view for the benefit of the public and shot off a letter to the Editor of the City’s prominent Newspaper. Venky wrote about the meeting and the speech given by the first speaker and the inability of the second speaker to reply and continued “The first speaker was wearing glasses. Let us for the sake of argument say that a powerful microscope type lens replaced the glass on the right side of his spectacle. The Marxist speaker would then see with his right eye only electrons and subatomic particles moving at incredible speeds and the table, the chairs, people etc. would vanish while with his left eye he would see no change. What then would he say about illusion? Which eye of his was giving him the illusion?” Venky had the pleasure of seeing his letter prominently printed in the Newspaper the next day and was glad that many others would have had a chance to put their thinking caps on, after reading his letter.
