Conspiracy 108

“According to Srila Visvanatha Chakravarti Thakura, the Supreme Lord smiled ruefully, because He prefers that His pure devotees stay away from His illusory energy. Curiosity to see the illusory energy of the Lord sometimes develops into sinful material desire. Nonetheless, to please His devotee Markandeya, the Lord granted his request, just as a father who cannot convince his son to give up pursuing a harmful desire may let him experience some painful reaction so that he will then voluntarily desist. Thus, understanding what would soon happen to Markandeya, the Lord smiled as He prepared to display the illusory potency to him.” (SB 12.9.7)

The modern world is riddled with a variety of conspiracy theories that seem to multiply by the day. Are power-hungry underground groups like the Illuminati plotting to rule mankind by establishing the New World Order? Was 9-11 an Al-Qaeda terrorist attack, or did the Bush administration help orchestrate the entire incident to justify military policy in the Middle East? Half a century ago, did the US government cover up a UFO landing and alien interaction at Roswell, New Mexico? How do we know what to believe? The theories themselves could well be part of a bigger conspiracy to confuse people and instil doubt in everything!

There is one conspiracy, however, that we can all be sure of 100% sure of. It’s a conspiracy a little closer to home, and a conspiracy which has been going on since time immemorial. Maya, the illusory energy of Krishna, is continually conspiring to keep the living entity shackled in the material world, and employs a variety of powerful tactics to fufil that objective.

Markandeya Rishi, a great devotee of the Lord, requested to have a vision of the material energy in action. He himself had no personal interest or desire to interact with maya, but was simply intrigued to learn how that potency functions. Our situation, however, may be a little different. Conditioned souls have a special attraction to maya. In fact, Srila Prabhupada once revealed: “The problem with my disciples is that they are not sufficiently scared of maya.”