A lot of people think we must have been with God at some point, and then God kicked us out and said,
“Go be born in maya (Divine illusion), become bound by maya, and see if you can get back to Me!”
That would be a cruel God indeed. If for no reason whatsoever God just decided to kick us out of His Divine abode and have us be born here in this mayic realm and see,
“Okay, it’s been a million lifetimes, you still haven’t attained Me? Okay, have a million more - millions, billions, trillions, unlimited lifetimes!”
And we still haven’t reached Him. No, God is not cruel. God has not put us in maya. We have been in this mayic world since eternity.
Sure, we get a little break during pralay (cosmic dissolution), when God withdraws His power from maya, and maya dissolves, the universe dissolves, and maya just enters a dormant state. At that time, we’re free from mayic sufferings because we’re also in a dormant state within God. Hey, our body is mayic, so when maya dissolves, our body’s gone. Our mind is mayic, so when maya dissolves into its dormant state, our mind becomes dormant as well, so just the soul remains during this state of pralay. We’re also dormant.
The soul, although it’s still chaitan (conscious), without the faculty of the mind and senses and body, it has no way to realize its awareness, realize its existence. So during pralay, we’re also doing nothing, thinking nothing, knowing nothing; it’s like being in a coma. These are the two states we’ve existed in since forever.
Srishti (cosmic creation), the universe is produced. We become active, we get up, our mind becomes active, we are born into a body. So that’s what we’re experiencing right now, this phase of srishti or we exist in the phase of pralay when we’re dormant. But either way, we’re under maya. We’ve never been beyond maya. We’ve never existed in the Divine abode. We’ve never been blissful or knowledgeable. What we are today is what we’ve been forever. The only thing that changes is we get a break during pralay, and then it starts again during srishti.
So you might wonder, why doesn’t God just leave it in a state of pralay? Let us have a break forever! (It’s) because when He does srishti, at least there’s an opportunity for souls to attain Him. How that’s possible we find out in these subsequent dohas (couplets).
But at least during srishti, right now, we can find out about God through this spiritual knowledge, and we can follow the path of devotion to attain Him. That’s why He does srishti.
Shandilya Maharshi (ancient sage) says, the reason that God does everything is His compassion on the souls. Out of compassion, during pralay, He says,
“Oh, look at all these uncountable souls in this state of dormancy. Let Me again manifest the universe, and they can become active, and at least some of them will become God-realized! Then I’ll give them another break.”
This cycle has been going on since eternity. This means that we have been under the bondage of maya forever.
