Maya (Illusion) and Christian Theology

The question of Maya (illusion) came up when my Internet friend, Falstaff, wrote a poem in which Jesus is startled to be awakened from the dead by an angel, and realize that the promise of his Father, to raise Jesus from the dead, had been kept.

I pointed out that, according to one or more verses, Jesus quite possibly raises himself. Then, I observed that only if the Hindu notion of maya were at work, and the incarnation of God as Jesus is a divine Lila or pastime, THEN it might be conceivable that Jesus, immersed in the Maya of divine Lila, forgets that he is God, and is indeed startled to awaken from death.

A few other possibilities come to my mind, with regard to Biblical Maya.
God promises King Solomon that God will dwell in the temple once it is built.
There is a verse in which Solomon looks at the temple and says "how can God dwell in this tabernacle when even the heavens are not wide enough to contain God."

I did a google search on some things, and came up with something regarding the Greek Christian notion of hypostasis (the three hypostases of the Trinity), as having some relation to Aristotle’s original use of the term hypostasis, which in turn has a connection with Plato’s notion of the underlying nature of reality vs. the seeming illusion or Maya which is perceived as reality.

We are reminded of Plato’s famous "Cave Analogy" in The Republic, where everyone is chained down, beholding shadows cast upon a wall, mistaking those shadows for reality.

I must post this now, and come back and add to it during the coming days.

In Christian usage, the Greek word hypostasis has a complicated and sometimes confusing history, but its literal meaning is "that which stands beneath".

It was used by, for instance, Aristotle and the Neo-platonists, to speak of the objective reality (as opposed to outer form or illusion) of a thing, its inner reality. In the Christian Scriptures this seems roughly its meaning at Hebrews 1:3. Allied to this was its use for "basis" or "foundation" and hence also "confidence," e.g., in Hebrews 3:14 and 11:1 and 2 Corinthians 9:4 and 11:17.

Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

The most compelling argument in favor of the notion that God is willingly subject to his own Maya is the incarnation itself.

There is an ancient Greek hymn which describes Archangel Gabriel singing to the Virgin Mary:

When the bodiless one heard the secret command
In haste he came and stood at Joseph’s dwelling
Crying unto the maiden who knew not wedlock
’The one who bowed down the heavens by his descent
Is held and contained unchanging wholly in thee.
Seeing him receive the form of a servant
In thy womb
I stand in awe and cry to thee
Rejoice thou bride unwed."

...
Consider this:

"God became man so that man might become a god." (cf. St. Athanasius, De Incarnatione or On the Incarnation 54:3

Western Abrahamic religions concentrate on mans process of approaching God. Eastern Vedic religions also recognize this process of human deification, but equally dwell upon the reverse process of God entering willingly into the creation, even to the extent of surrendering to the Maya or illusion of physico-temporal being.

Consider an actor in a drama, who is conscious of the fiction of that drama.
But then, consider that as an actor approaches closer and closer to perfection, he or she merges with the character of the role, until, in an ideal situation, the actor truly believes the reality of the fiction.

Now, if God assumes the form of an infant, but retains all aspects of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence, then, in some sense, God is being deceitful, is lying. If God is being honest, then, God is truly an infant, in every sense of the word, and has willingly surrendered to maya.

In modern times, it is Nikos Kazankis who explores the vividness of God surrendered to Maya, in "The Last Temptation of Christ."

At one extreme, we have the Islamic notion of God, as Allah, as "unlike to anything which is (as a verse in the Qur'an states). Islam is the extreme example of God as totally outside of the universe. Such a God must not visually appear at any time, no even allow his voice to be heard (which is why the Qur'an is dictated to Muhammad by the Archangel Gabreel.)

At another extreme, in Vedic religions, we see God described as immanent yet transcendent.

The more closely God encroaches upon the world and sentient beings, the more forcefully must some form of Maya or illusion be invoked.