So, when the Hindu and Buddhist philosophers speak of detachment from all this apparent
 world of separate beings, detachment means going with this whole thing and not resisting
 its change.
 And you can afford to go with it, you can afford to get mixed up in life and to fall
 in love and to get involved with all sorts of things.
 You can afford it if you know that it's an illusion.
 But this is not illusion in a bad sense of the word.
 Here's this Hindu word, crucial, the world is called Maya.
 This word Maya, yes it means illusion, it means magic, it means art, it means delineation
 or measurement.
 So from mantra we get meter, we also get matter, material.
 Isn't it funny that when we say material, today we mean something very real, because
 the root of the word is illusion.
 So you see, I mean measurement is kind of an illusion.
 You don't find inches lying around.
 You can't pick up an inch.
 So in the same way that hours and inches and pounds and dollars and so on are actually
 imaginary, they're elaborate systems of cosmic bookkeeping, with their little scratches on
 paper, little hairlines on dials.
 So in exactly that way, the distinction between things is Maya, is imaginary.
 But what an imagination.
 In a way, to say that the world is Maya, is at the same time to say that what lies behind
 Maya is immaterial.
 Look at the reversal of the word.
 Oh, it's immaterial, doesn't matter.
 What matters?
 It's all this.
 But that gets us to a deeper point yet.
 The self, the real self, doesn't matter.
 Which is another way of saying, it doesn't exist for any purpose.
 It doesn't need to exist for any purpose.
 What purpose would it exist for?
 When it's what there is.
 It doesn't need, it won't find anything in the future.
 Has nothing in the past that it has to go back and remember.
 Is now, an eternal now.
 And so in that way, it doesn't matter.
 But therefore, the most important thing in the universe is the one thing that doesn't
 matter, the one thing that's totally and completely useless, and that nobody can find anything
 for.
 And then Master was asked, what is the most valuable thing in the world?
 And he answered, the head of a dead cat.
 Why?
 Because no one can put a price on it.
 So this self, the Brahman, is like the head of a dead cat.
 But you see, if then you say, hmm, I really ought to get that dead cat's head, because
 there's something spiritual about it, and it'd be very good for me.
 After all, if I knew the self, I might be a better person.
 People might like me more.
 I'd be more constructive in society.
 I would do this, that, and the other.
 But you see, that's putting the cart before the horse.
 That's trying to make the tail wag the dog.
 The knowledge of Brahman, the self, never does anybody any good if they're trying to
 make it do them some good.
 Only when they're not concerned with whether it does them any good or not does it do them
 any good.
 It's like when you relax and you go out and play.
 Americans in particular don't know how to do this, because they're always justified.
 They always say it's good for me.
 It's exercise.
 It is to change from work, and that'll be able to make me work better.
 Everything they do is done for some serious reason.
 It's the Protestant conscience.
 And so we never play, except very exceptionally, because play is that which is done just for
 itself, for fun.
 So the self, the Atman, the Brahman, exists for fun.
 It has no reason to exist.
 It's completely useless.
 And it is, therefore, Maya is linked with the word Lila, and that means play.
 Also, of course, the word illusion in English is derived from the Latin ludere, to play.
 So the nature, you might say, of the self is that it does no work.
 It only plays.
 Work is something serious, you know, that you do for a purpose, because you believe
 that you've got to go on living.
 You work to survive, because you think you have to survive.
 That was one of the things they told you as a little child.
 You've got to go on, man.
 You don't have to.
 This thing doesn't have to go on.
 That's why it does.
 I know that sounds paradoxical, but there are so many things in life that are like that.
 If I'm trying to impress people, I usually don't.
 If you try too hard with anything, you usually make a mess of it.
 And so this basic thing, then, is that the self, the Brahman behind the world, is engaged
 in play.
 It is in this sense that the Hindu philosophers say, "Brahman does not actually become the
 world.
 The meaning of that is, he's playing at being it, or it's playing at being it, as distinct
 from working at it."
 And so in certain Oriental countries, when one refers to noble people of high birth,
 it is often said, "So, so, Lord so-and-so has died."
 The Japanese would say, "He's played at dying."
 Or "Will he play at taking a journey to Tokyo?"
 Also remember this, although I've constantly used in this talk the word "one" to apply
 to the self, and central, the Hindus don't use this word, except speaking poetically
 and loosely.
 The self is not one.
 The self is called non-dual.
 Because you see, the idea of one has an opposite.
 The opposite of one is many, or none.
 But the which-than-which, there is no whicher, has no opposite.
 There's nothing outside it.
 So you can't call it one, because one is an exclusive idea.
 It excludes two.
 So they call it, instead of one, they call it non-dual, which is Advaita.
 This is from the word, you see, "dva" is the root meaning "two."
 The "v" becomes "u," so we get "dual."
 And "a" is the meaning in Sanskrit, often, "non."
 Non-dual, Advaita.
 And so, it doesn't exclude anything.
 One is an exclusive word.
 Advaita is meant to be a totally inclusive kind of unity.
 Now, of course, this word itself, when you look at it from a logical standpoint, is a
 dualistic word, just like one.
 It's the opposite of Dvaita.
 Dvaita and Advaita.
 But the idea here in Indian philosophy is to use this word in a certain way.
 Now you know that on a flat surface, you can't draw three dimensions.
 Anything you draw will be in two dimensions.
 But why do we see three dimensions?
 Because of an artistic convention called "one-pointed perspective," which will give you the illusion
 of a third dimension.
 Now, in other words, a two-dimensional line is being used to imply a third dimension,
 which can never be expressed on a flat surface.
 So in exactly the same way, Advaita is a word used specially to designate what lies beyond
 all logical categories.
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