Maya

Illusion. An oriental concept that nothing is what it appears to be: that a man, for example, who exhibits an unruly disposition is only suffering the penalty for deeds committed in a previous incarnation, because of which his spirit is destined in this incarnation to life in a body which fights against itself: hence is entitled to sympathy rather than censure. It is the oriental approach to what to the Occidental is philosophy. The astrological concept is not so much a matter of Karma as of the Omar picture of the vase marred because the potter's hand slipped: the accident of an unfavorable birth moment that subjects the native to a conflict of forces, and entitles him to forbearance in case he is unable to summon to his aid spiritual strength sufficient to resolve the conflict.