Question: If all the beautiful things we have known moonlight, stars, music, the sound of the sea, the fragrance of flowers, our little dreams – are Maya [illusion], what is there left to take their place when you sweep them out of our hearts and minds and leave only the concept of very far-off and abstract goal of Realization? For until we are realized, it leaves us nothing but emptiness and very sad.
Baba: Beauty and ugliness have relative existence. To one trudging along under a scorching sun, barefooted, with an empty stomach, maya won’t look beautiful. The mood of the subject (the perceiver) invests the object (the perceived) with its own coloring.
The goal of realization does not necessarily imply for an average man denial of things, good or bad. It only emphasizes relative worth. From the height of realization, maya would cease to exist, it was pure imagination. Even apart from the spiritual experience, the concept that you are in the world but not of the world would go a long way in dissipating sadness and the feeling of void or emptiness.
If one were to treat maya sincerely and wholeheartedly as pure imagination, the resultant poise and non-identification with things external would automatically open up one’s internal fountain of bliss and instead of feeling sad and empty would enable one to live the perfect life of being in harmony with the universe.
–Teachings of Meher Baba, compiled by Naosherwan Anzar, p126