A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

158 MAYA AND ILLUSION.senses. If he does not get enough to eat, he is miserableor if something happens to his body, he is miserable. In thesenses, both his misery and his happiness begin and end.And as soon as this man progresses, as soon as his horizonof happiness increases, his horizon of unhappiness increasesproportionately. The man in the forest does not knowwhat it is to be jealous, to be in the Law Court, to pay taxesregularly, what is to be blamed by society, to be watchedday and night by the most tremendous tyranny that humandiabolism ever invented, prying into the secrets of everyhuman heart. He does not know how man becomesa thousand times more diabolical than any other animal, withall his vain knowledge, and with all his pride. Thus it isthat, as we emerge out of the senses, we develop higherpowers of enjoyment, and at the same time, we have todevelop higher powers of suffering too the; nerves, on theother hand, are becoming finer, and capable of sufferingmore. Often, in every society, we find that the ignorant,common man,if he is abused does not feel much, but hefeels a good thrashing. But the gentleman cannot bear asingle word of abuse, he has become so finely nerved. Miseryhas increased with his susceptibility to happiness. Thisdoes not go much to prove the philosopher s case. As weincrease our power to be happy, we are always increasingour power to suffer ; and, in my humble opinion,if weadvance in our power to become happy in arithmetical progression, we shall progress, on the other hand, in the powerto become miserable in geometrical progression. Theywho live in a forest do not know much of society, whilewe, who are progressing, know that the more we can progress the more we can feel, and nobody knows whetherthree-quarters of us are not born lunatics. This is maya.Thus we find that tnaya is not a theory for the expla-