All of you must have played the game of Mario at some point in life. Mario collects the coins, kills the dragon and rescues his girlfriend, every time he collects a hundred coins – he gets a new life…and the game goes on. As you play this game, you get thrilled when you collect a coin, or reach a higher level…you stay glued to the screen, oblivious to what is happening around you. Pause a moment to think – the coins that you collect, have they helped any of you buy a real car or a good meal? As soon as you switch off the power, the coins disappear, as does the girlfriend. You think you passed time, but in reality, that time passed you. After two hours of play, you are still at the same level, maybe a little lower than what you were, because the virtual stimulation dulls your reflexes, your eyes turn soar and even you don’t know what all junk you stuffed into your stomach as you were engrossed in the play. The game of Mario was unreal, the state it left you in, is your reality – in the physical world.
Cut to the ‘real’ life. From morning to night one is engaged in the play of the five senses. All through life one is busy collecting more coins – wealth, power, relationships, etc. for himself, without realising that with a single press of the nerve, all this will become redundant. With time your senses will dull and you will not be able to enjoy any of that which you collected. As they put you on a funeral pyre, your own body will also not be with you, leave alone the other physical possessions you accumulated. All that will remain is pain, pain of parting with all the coins that you had collected with so much attachment.
How old are you? Whether you are 20 or 40 or 80, these years are over for you. There is no “replay” or “try again” button in the game of life. You have not passed these years, these years have passed you. They will never come back and you have collected nothing to carry forward. With the coins that you collected, you cannot even buy another life, you leave the body dissatisfied. This is maya.
Mario is maya of the five senses. Life is the maya of total senses. You take another birth with a completely washed out memory and make the same mistakes again. You do not improve as there is no one to show you the reality. Yes, there are books that tell you about reality, but you do not have a Guru who shows you the reality. Unless your Guru forces energy into you, you are unable to break the web of maya. Once energy is forced into you and you see beyond, majority still fall back as their desire is the same. So the path beyond lies in the basic principles of Sanatan Kriya, start doing things for others. This will purify you and change your desires gradually. Find a Guru who is not affected by maya and merge with him/her completely in a barrier-less state, and I am sure that you will understand the futility of playing Mario then.