The Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

╭ chapter seven
sapidity of water, the brightness of fire, the effort of the spiritual
aspirant. This may be what is meant by the vijnana of our
title – the mystic’s vision of the divine as present here and now
is perhaps the real meaning of the term.
The word maya appears here, though not for the first
time in the Gita. Just as the concepts of prakriti and Purusha
are later developed in Sankhya philosophy, maya is later
built into the formal structure of Vedanta, another of the six
major schools of Indian philosophy. The word maya comes
from the root ma, “to measure out,” and originally meant the
power of a deity to create, especially to create what Indian
philosophy calls “name and form”: matter and its percepts.
Maya was the magical capacity to create form and illusion – a
god’s divine power to put on a disguise, or to fling forth world
after world of life. Maya is also the outward look of things,
the passing show that conceals immortal being. Maya can be
both delightful and dangerous, alluring and yet treacherous.
The gunas, the three basic qualities of all created things, swirl
within the world of maya. Crossing over the ocean of maya is
the goal of the wise voyager, and one boat is devotion. In this
chapter the Gita begins to stress the importance of love and
devotion – themes that later become dominant.
Krishna’s true nature is hidden by maya (7:25). The dangers
of maya are not depicted strongly in this chapter, but
the “delusions” – moha – of life in maya’s world are hinted at;
they are, essentially, the self-centered attachments Krishna
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