You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

256 / You Are Not
THE EpilOGUE
THE pOWER Of COnDEnSATiOn
Maya could, metaphorically, be called the effect of the
condensation process. This “condensation” carries with it the
illusion of separation, and is part of the dream—mirage, and
although it is made of the SAME SUBSTANCE as everything
else, it exhibits, within THAT ONE SUBSTANCE the illusion
of movement.
The great illusion is like a dream that appears when you
sleep. What “makes the dream appear?” It is the same illusory
condensation that makes the world and dreams appear—and
disappear. Between waking and deep sleep is the Dream State.
And it is this illusory “condensation” that forms what we call
consciousness.
Because, as a flower must rise up toward the sun and live
by the sun’s rays as a force, so too, it is the imaginary force of
“condensation,” which animates, making “you” believe “you
are.”
“All this happens because of Maya [the condensation].
Maya is derived from the root ‘ma’ to measure out. That
which makes experience measurable, i.e. limited, and
severs the ‘This’ from ‘I’ and ‘I’ from ‘This’ and excludes
things from one another . . . ” (Siva Sutras, p. x)
Each veil or illusion of consciousness divides and “sees”
itself as separate through or by the power of condensation
and movement, which gives the illusion of separation, and
of different substances. We can call this the power of condensation,
or the power of contracting, or movement like
the movement of the ocean—yet there is still only THE
SUBSTANCE.
It is with this contraction, expansion, and movement that
the concept of consciousness is formed. Once the contraction