First Guru Amardas' shabad that has the most elegant definition of Maya in my view. It comes from Anand Sahib (Pauri 29). Maya is anything that takes us away from our true essence. Following my interpretation, I am sharing the poems I have written that are inspired by this shabad.
Finding Joy in a Burning World
In a world that often feels like it is burning—consumed by conflict, ambition, illness, and endless wanting—the search for peace can feel like a search for an exit. We imagine that somewhere there must be a cool, quiet place far away from the heat of life. Escape is not possible. And escape is not needed. Joy comes from remembering what the fire is for. I have been thinking of this as I reflect on the following words from Guru Amardas (29th of 40 verses in his Verses of Joy):
Eh māyā
This is Maaya,
jit har visrai
by which Hari is forgotten …
moh upjai
by which greed arises …
bhāo dūjā lāyā
by which duality attaches.
Jaisee agan udar meh taisee bāhar māyā
As is the fire within the womb, so is Maya outside
Māiā agan sabh iko jehee kartai khel rachāyā
The fire of Maya is one and the same the Creator has staged this play
Jā tis bhāṇā tā jamiā parvār bhalā bhāyā
Divine order results in birth and the family is very pleased.
Liv chhuṛkee lagee trisnā māiā amar vartāyā
Love wears off, attachments trap Maya runs limitless
Kahai Nānak gur parsādī jinā liv lāgee tinee viche māyā pāyā
By Guru's Grace, those who are enrapt in love find Hari within Maya
Eh māyā jit har visrai moh upjai bhāo dūjā lāyā
Kahai Nānak gur parsādī jinā liv lāgee tinee viche māyā pāyā
The Shabad begins with a diagnosis of the human condition. Maya—the world of appearances, desires, relationships, ambitions—is the place where the Divine is often forgotten. When remembrance fades, attachment arises and a feeling of separation takes root. But then the Guru introduces a startling image. Maya is compared to fire.
Jaisee agan udar meh taisee bāhar māyā.
The fire outside is the same as the fire within the womb.
This line changes everything. The heat of the womb cooks the body of the unborn child. Without that warmth, nothing forms. Life itself depends on that quiet fire. The Guru is suggesting that the same energy that gives life in the womb also fuels the world outside: desire, creativity, ambition, longing, love. The fire itself is not the enemy.
The problem is forgetfulness. When the Divine is forgotten, the fire becomes destructive. Attachment hardens. Craving multiplies. Duality spreads. But the Guru insists that the Creator has staged this entire play with one fire. The same energy that binds us can also awaken us. This is why the Shabad does not call us to escape the world. Instead, it invites us to discover the Divine within Maya itself.
And this insight finds a remarkable echo in a contemporary poem by Katie Farris, written centuries later but addressing the same burning world.
Why Write Love Poetry in a Burning World
- Katie Farris
To train myself to find, in the midst of hell
what isn't hell.
The body, bald, cancerous, but still
beautiful enough to
imagine living the body
washing the body
replacing a loose front
porch step the body chewing
what it takes to keep a body
going—
This scene has a tune
a language I can read a door
I cannot close I stand
within its wedge
a shield.
Why write love poetry in a burning world?
To train myself, in the midst of a burning world
to offer poems of love to a burning world.
Farris's poem begins with a simple but difficult practice: to train myself to find, in the midst of hell, what isn't hell. She does not deny suffering. The body in her poem is bald from cancer. The world is burning. The pain is real. But even within that burning world she searches for what remains alive—small acts of care, attention, and tenderness. Washing a body. Replacing a porch step. Chewing food slowly enough to continue living. The poem suggests that love is not an escape from the burning world. Love is a discipline practiced inside it.
In that sense, Farris's poem is another way of standing inside the fire without forgetting what it is for. She is not looking for a way out. She is looking for what is still sacred within the flames. This is the same orientation the Guru points toward. The final lines of the Shabad reveal the transformation that makes joy possible: jinā liv lāgee tinee viche māyā pāyā. Those whose consciousness is absorbed in love find the Divine within Maya itself.
The fire does not disappear. The world continues with all its heat—its ambitions, fears, griefs, and desires. But something fundamental changes in the way we stand within it. The same flame that burns a house down can bake bread. The same Maya that traps the mind in craving becomes, when remembrance awakens, the place where the Divine is discovered.
This is why saints sing and poets write love poems even when the world burns. They are practicing remembrance. They are training themselves to notice what is still alive in the fire. Peace, then, is not a cool oasis somewhere outside the flames. It is a change of orientation within the heat of life. It is what happens when love learns how to stand inside the fire without being consumed by it. The world may burn. But the fire was never meant only to destroy. Sometimes it is there to bake the bread of joy.
In a world that often feels like it is burning—consumed by conflict, ambition, illness, and endless wanting—the search for peace can feel like a search for an exit. We imagine that somewhere there must be a cool, quiet place far away from the heat of life. Escape is not possible. And escape is not needed. Joy comes from remembering what the fire is for. I have been thinking of this as I reflect on the following words from Guru Amardas (29th of 40 verses in his Verses of Joy).
This is why saints sing and poets write love poems even when the world burns. They are practicing remembrance. They are training themselves to notice what is still alive in the fire. Peace, then, is not a cool oasis somewhere outside the flames. It is a change of orientation within the heat of life. It is what happens when love learns how to stand inside the fire without being consumed by it. The world may burn. But the fire was never meant only to destroy. Sometimes it is there to bake the bread of joy.
The Story of the Wrong Petal
Once I played a wrong note
in Raag Ramkali—
the raag that sprouts
love of wholeness.
One finger slipped,
a small rebellion on the string,
and I could hear sirens
of the raag-police.
Yet the note kept opening—
like a heart
breaking into bloom.
For a moment I wondered:
how could this be any different
from Anandkali—joy itself, sprouting?
Afterwards the tanpura
kept breathing
its ancient tale: yes.
Choosing Petals
The fire that burns us within
is not unlike what chars the world.
- Guru Amardas
More dangerous than those
who believe God is seated
on some distant seventh sky,
and perhaps even more fickle
than those who think
He is sitting quietly beside us,
are those who decide
the only place He sits
is on a mitochondrial throne
within us. It begins
with a small preference—
a petal over the flower,
a daisy over a wild spring,
a season over the one sun
that burns without choosing.
Maya, Holding Love’s Hand
This morning I considered your hand in mine
the way one considers weather—
a warmth arriving
that leaves with its pockets full of light.
My chai cooled while I thought about
the thousand songs of forever,
of two people holding on.
Then an ancient bard cleared his throat
from somewhere behind the Bhagavad Gita
hummed a single note:
love ends but never maya.
Outside, a couple passed, hand in hand,
while the wind turned one leaf into two.
Magic of Maya
Once I saw a magician
stretch one red ribbon
and suddenly there are two.
Today I watched a baby lizard
slide out of its parent
in an Instagram video,
landing on a thin branch
as if the tree itself
had just invented it.
What could be
more magical
than birth?
Especially one followed by no school,
no rehearsal, just climbing
already without eyes.
The ancient bard claims
Maya makes two out of one.
And what about death?
Death, that lizard still clinging
to the branch long after the tree
has turned back into earth.
Even more
magical
than birth.
The First Separation
The first thing that happens to us
is eviction.
Someone lifts us into the light,
cuts our cord to our origin,
and suddenly the world has edges—
your body here,
your mother — somewhere else
already being called someone other.
Eh Maya!
And from that moment on
everyone encourages the distance.
They give us mirrors,
names,
opinions about what belongs to us.
The world becomes a long lesson
in the word mine.
My shoes.
My thoughts.
My problems.
Maya!
By the time we grow up
we are excellent at being separate—
little islands with excellent Wi-Fi.
The ancient bard once
appeared in the name
of ever-serving and
sang the song of anand,
the song of joy!
Right here,
inside this very body
made of dust and grocery lists
and the occasional headache,
there is a door
that does not lead outward.
Eh Maya!
It opens inward.
And when the throat loosens—
just a little—
a song slips through
and suddenly
the walls between things
forget their jobs.
The body remembers the ocean
it was briefly separated from,
and for a few minutes
while the note is traveling,
mother, child, world, breath—
everything
is singing the same line.
Eh Maya
Singing oneness!
