Tattva 6 — Māyā (The Veil)

Māyā-tattva is the great divide of the map: the veiling power that cuts the unified upper realm off from the fragmented world below. Above it, diversity is still known as one's own self; from here down, things begin to seem genuinely separate and other, and the infinite consciousness appears as countless small, bounded individuals. In Kashmir Shaivism māyā is understood not as a cosmic illusion to be seen through but as a real power of the divine — the very means by which consciousness limits itself to play at being many.