The first step towards samadhi in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sarvitarka Samadhi leading to Nirvetarka Samadhi, consists in questioning not just the physical world but the circumstances in your life as you assess them, estimate them. So that would be an application of maya. But maya now applied not just to the physical world, but to circumstances. That is, we know, every physicist knows, the physical world is not what we think it is.

But now what we are saying is that what you think of your circumstances is not what they are. That is maya, the theory of maya. Now what the Sufis would say, complementary to what the Hindus would say, is that not only the physical world, but the circumstances are ayat, that means signs, which gives you a clue as to what is behind it. So instead of saying that my assessment is false, you say, well, I wonder what was behind that? What is being enacted behind these problems? Instead of just saying the are problems that are not what I think they are. That is negative. But what are they? And you never know what they are but what you can say is that there is some meaningfulness that is trying to come through, that transpires through that which appears. And there is some kind of a resonance between your being and that which is enacted behind the problems. A resonance.

And that came out very clearly in a word of Jung, when he said if you don't deal with your shadow, it will appear in the form of your fate. I was shattered when I heard that for the first time. If you don't deal with your shadow, it will appear again in your fate. So there he is enlisting the impact of our being upon what we think is our fate, and which is really the circumstances.