Illusion is defined as taking one thing for another. For example, mistaking a rope for a snake is an illusion, but the rope is not false for all that. The person subject to the illusion does indeed have a rope before them, but their perception of it is illusory. Moreover, the erroneous concept that sees the material manifestation as separate from the Lord's energy is an illusion, but this material manifestation is not false.

This illusory concept corresponds to a reflection of reality appearing in the darkness of ignorance. Thus, anything that seems not to be produced by God's energy of union will be called maya.

To believe that the individual being or the Lord have no form is also an illusion.

Standing on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, in the midst of two opposing armies, the Lord declares that Arjuna, His disciple and pure devotee, and all the warriors assembled there, as well as Himself, existed in the past, that they exist in the present, and that in the future as well, they will always remain distinct individuals, even when their bodies are destroyed and they are liberated from the bondage of material existence.

The Lord and the created beings remain forever distinct persons. They can in no way lose this personal nature. But only the influence of the illusory energy, that reflection of light in the darkness, can disappear, by the mercy of the Lord.

The individual being does not enjoy real independence, but only a reflection of the independence inherent in Krishna, the Supreme Being. Thus, the soul conditioned by matter and illusory energy, which claims supreme independence, finds itself under the sway of illusion. This illusion afflicts beings endowed with a poor foundation of knowledge. We see the shimmering reflection of the sun, the moon, fire, and electricity dazzling so-called scientists, doctors, empiricists, and others, who go so far as to deny the existence of the Supreme Lord, while advancing their numerous theories and speculations on the creation, maintenance, and annihilation of the material manifestation.

A doctor may well deny the existence of the soul in the body of the individual being, but he remains incapable of bringing a corpse back to life, even though all the mechanisms of the body continue to exist after death.

Psychologists, for their part, conduct extensive studies on the physiology of the brain, as if it were the arrangement of brain tissue that allowed thought to be expressed, but they remain incapable of restoring mental activity in a corpse.

Thus, scientists study the cosmic manifestation or the constitution of the body, without seeing any connection to the Supreme Lord, but these are merely various forms of intellectual gymnastics, which, ultimately, correspond only to pure and simple illusion. All this progress of science and knowledge in the current context of this materialistic civilization is nothing more than a reflection of the illusory energy, which manifests its influence by veiling reality.