The mind cannot know or understand Maya, its own illusory nature. So the mind has to surrender or merge into Reality. It has to transcend ego, limited conceptual existence, in order to know the Reality. If all is Divine, then illusion is also Divine. I’m stretching the logic but if you want to face the Truth, you have to ask bold questions. If everything is Divine—physical, mental, astral—and if illusion is Divine, then what is its nature? Let’s assume for the time being, in order to understand, that there are three stages: the gross, inert, immovable matter that is Light; the vibratory or ethereal, which is more subtle than matter, is also Light; and the non-conceptual, non-dualistic, which is Absolute Light in its own true pristine form. Throughout Light is playing continuously in various phenomena. That means what? Throughout creation there is a continuity of Light manifested in greater and lesser degrees. Light is always within everything. Since Light is inseparable from nature, the phenomena, and continuous, sages have called it the maintenance or sustenance aspect of creation. And that is Maya, the Matrix, which we call Divine Mother.
      Let’s put it this way: if the Light had no phenomena, gross or subtle, if it were devoid of nature or cosmic energy, the creation would be non-existent. To make creation flourish is the work of the Creatrix in the aspect of maintainer and sustainer. She is inseparable from the Divine, from Light, and pervaded throughout creation. This is the fact of Maya, that although it is changeful, shifting, perceptual and conceptual, at the same time it is fully Divine. It is so interrelated and intermixed with absolute Truth and Light that it is Divine, as is everything. It is not only respect for matter and illusion that I am talking about, it is accepting God’s phenomena as godly. Then there is no question of bridging anything. Bridging is only needed when you forget, when there is a gap in your thought process. Then you bridge it as a kind of intellectual gymnastics. There has to be a coherence of thinking, a homogeneity.
 

HATEVER WE HAVE BEEN CONDEMNING as illusion or whatever we think is worldly, or degrading, by characterizing it as non-Divine we are giving that thing or action the potency to degrade us. Start from the premise: all is Divine, all is godly. It is only a matter of relative and Absolute. Even a great sage such as Shankaracharya rejected the idea that illusion is un-Divine. He gave the example that if we say a lotus is blooming in the sky, that is a non-existent phenomenon. It has no reality because the lotus does not bloom in the sky. It is a total myth, unreal. Something that is perceivable to the senses has existence, but from the eternal point of view, it is illusory because it is not permanent. Therefore Shankaracharya said that the phenomena, jaggat, the cosmos, is “non-existent existence.” It appears to be real but it is not truly Real. We call this divine phenomenon Mother because She maintains the creation. Otherwise, Light or the Absolute would go from point to point, dazzling in its own pristine purity, and the creation would be non-existent. But creation is existent in its own way. Therefore, we worship this Divinity. This is God and you also.
      Don’t ask, “So if everything is Divine, then is evil Divine, is murder or theft Divine?” We can argue these points before Realization but after Realization these questions do not exist. They won’t even be in your conceptions. So I always feel, humbly, that if we could correct our premises then many problems will be over. Why? Due to ages of karmas and samskars—impressions, modifications or habits—the mind has the tendency to try to corner the Truth, to question, to be skeptical because that gives it a little gratification of personality. It creates reductio ad absurdum arguments that will eventually prove null and void, but until then the mind gets to survive, which is what it wants. It has a habit of skepticism and when that proves foundationless, it creates resistance in order to save itself. If resistance doesn’t work, it denies. If denial doesn’t work, it escapes. If escape doesn’t work, then it threatens suicide, but it won’t give up. This is just a survival instinct of ego.