When Suka said thus, the king interposed with the question, "Master! How did this Maya acquire such overwhelming power? Who endowed Maya with the capacity to hide the glory of Madhava (God) Himself? What exactly is the real nature of Maya? Please tell me." Then, Suka explained, "King! This Maya is not anything separate, with its own form. God is discernible only with the sheath of Maya; He is evident, because He has worn the accoutrement of Maya. It is His Upadhi. That is to say, Maya obstructs the reality. Its nature is to hide the reality and make it appear as the unreal. Only he who removes it, destroys it, beats it off, cuts across it, he alone can attain God. Maya makes you feel that the non-existent exists. It shows water in the mirage; it makes you see what is imagined and desired, as truth. Delusion cannot affect a man if he is able to give up desire or imagining and planning."
"Or else, how could Yasoda who has seen with her own eyes, on many occasions, the divinity of Krishna, slide back into the belief that He was her son? The imagining, the desire, that was the cause of this delusion. The body is of the son, and the mother; but, the real core, the Dehi, the embodied - that has neither son nor mother! The mother-body is related to the son-body but, there is no Mother-Dehi, no Son-Dehi! If one gets this faith firm in himself there can be no more desire for external pleasures. Inquire - and investigate; you will know this truth. Without that inquiry, delusion will grow and the intellect will be slowly subdued."
"Ah! The role that divinity takes upon itself brings about results that are really momentous! The Vedanta teaches that one should penetrate behind the role into the reality; this is its inner meaning. Deluded by the role, man pursues desire! Believing the body that is assumed, to be real and true, man falls into Maya. For those whose attention is concentrated on the body, the person within will not be visible, isn't it? When ashes cover, the red cinders will not be visible. When clouds gather thick, the sun and the moon cannot be seen! Moss floating thick upon the waters of a lake gives the illusion that it is hard ground, over which there is vegetation. When the eye has cataract over the pupil, one cannot see anything at all. So too, when the notion of the body being the reality is predominant, the resident in the body is not noticed at all."
"Master! This day, in truth, the veil has fallen off, from my mind. Your teaching has, like a gust of wind, shaken off the ash over the live cinders. The illusion that this composite of five elements namely, this body, is the reality has been totally exploded, and exterminated. I am blessed, I am indeed blessed." With these words, Maharaja Parikshith fell at the feet of the Guru, Suka.
Meanwhile, the gathering of Rishis, sages and common citizens fell into animated conversation. "When time clicks fast towards the end, the body too has to get ready to drop, isn't it? The body drops when the vital airs stop flowing in it; but, the mind will not leave off. For this reason, newer and newer bodies have to be assumed until the mind is rendered empty, devoid of content, vacant of wants. This day, our Maharaja has differentiated the mind from the body! Now, he is in such bliss that even vital airs can't make any impact. When the mind is merged ever in Madhava (God), the body will be all divinity; its humanness cannot be identified," they said.
