Cosmos as a Veil --- Hinduism & Sufism

Cosmos as a veil hiding and manifesting God is a concept found in many religions like Hinduism, Buddhism & Sufism and philosophical doctrines such as pantheism. i thought of focusing on how it is referred to in both Hinduism and Sufism. Starting with Hinduism and following on with Sufi concepts.

Maya is the phenomenal world of separate objects and people, which creates for some the illusion that it is the only reality. Maya is the limited, purely physical and mental reality in which our everyday consciousness has become entangled. Maya is believed to be an illusion, a veiling of the true, unitary Self — the Cosmic Spirit.

Many philosophies or religions seek to "pierce the veil" in order to glimpse the transcendent truth, from which the illusion of a physical reality springs. It has two principle functions — one is to cover up Brahman and hide it from our mind. The other is to present the material world instead of Brahman (the concept of the supreme spirit found in Hinduism). It is destructible.

Maya causes delusion in many ways. Under the influence of Maya an individual loses his intelligence and power of discretion. He forgets his true nature. He loses contact with the self with in and believes that he is the ego with a body and a name. In that delusion, he assumes that he is doer of his actions, where as in truth he is just an instrument of God, who is the real doer. He develops attachment with worldly objects and wants to possess them. He strives for wrong objectives in the world, having lost his connection with the real self and having forgotten the true purpose of his existence.

Maya is not real, since it disappears on the dawn of knowledge of the Supreme Self.

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To the Sufi, the cosmos is a veil, an allusion as referred to in the Quranic verse;

"We shall show them our symbols in the horizons and in themselves, until it be made known to them that it is the truth"

The cosmos has two aspects to the Sufi; the first is expressed that the universe is not God. The universe is relative, transient; changing therefore it is otherness, separateness, a veil which separates us from God. In its other aspect the universe is none other than God, because it's the universe which reveals the divinity. Therefore the cosmos both hides and reveals, veils and makes manifest. To the Sufi, the world is transparent, because the Sufi sees the transcendent significance of physical things.

The way the universe manifests God and the way the universe disguises God. Phenomena, can be "signs" or "veils," showing God to us or hiding God from us, God's nearness and God's distance -- immanence and transcendence -- are both true. The difference lies in which face of reality we choose to see.

"And east and west all is for Allah, then whichever side you turn your face there is the face of Allah. Undoubtedly Allah is all Embracing, all Knowing."