Krishna Explains Maya to Narada

Narada, the wandering sage, once asked Krishna to explain Maya.

Narada: "Lord, I have heard much about your Maya — the cosmic illusion. But I do not truly understand it. Can you show me?"

Narada: "Narada, Maya cannot be explained. It can only be experienced. Are you sure you want to understand?"

Krishna: "I am ready."

Narada: "Very well. But first, I am thirsty. There is a village nearby. Go fetch me some water."

Narada went to the village and knocked on a door. A beautiful woman opened it. Their eyes met, and Narada forgot why he had come. He forgot the water. He forgot Krishna.

He married the woman. They had children. He became a farmer. Years passed — happy years full of simple joys. He forgot he had ever been a sage.

Then came the flood.

Waters rose without warning. Narada grabbed his wife, his children, and ran. But the current was too strong. First his youngest child was swept away. Then his wife. Then another child. He screamed, clinging to his eldest, but the water took him too.

Krishna: "KRISHNA!"

Instantly, he was back by the riverside. Krishna stood there, smiling, still waiting.

Narada: "Where is my water? You left thirty minutes ago."

Krishna: "Thirty minutes? I lived an entire life! I had a wife, children! They drowned! I felt everything — love, loss, grief!"

Krishna: "And yet none of it was real. You never left this spot. There is no village, no wife, no children. It was all Maya."

Krishna: "But the love was real! The pain was real!"

Narada: ""Was it? Or did it feel real? This is Maya, Narada — not that the world is fake like a painting, but that you become so absorbed in the play that you forget you are the audience."

You are an eternal sage, yet in thirty minutes you forgot your identity completely. You became 'Narada the farmer' so thoroughly that when I called you, you didn't recognize your own name. THIS is Maya.

The world is real in its experience but temporary in its existence. The love you felt was genuine, but it was love for forms that were always going to disappear. You invested your entire being in what could never last.

This is what every soul does. They dive into the play — marriage, children, wealth, status — and forget that they were watching a play. When the play ends, they weep as if something real was lost. But the audience member was never touched. Only the character suffered."

Narada: "How do we escape Maya?"

Krishna: "You don't escape it. You see through it. Keep loving, keep living, keep engaging — but hold it all lightly. Know that you are the eternal witness, temporarily playing a role. The moment you remember that, Maya loses its grip. It doesn't disappear — it becomes entertainment rather than entrapment."