It is important to notice that R. thinks this power of self-expression is a sine qua non of the Absolute. There is a well known song which children sing : “My hat, it has three corners; three corners has my hat. And had it not three corners, it would not be my hat.”…
This power of actualization is given the name of māyā in later Vedānta, for the manifestation does not disturb the unity and integrity of the One. The one becomes manifested by its own intrinsic power, by its tapas….The Śvetāśvatara Upanisad describes God as māyin, the divine art or power by which the divinity makes a likeness of the eternal prototypes or ideas inherent in his nature…
Māyā3 is like an ellipse. An ellipse is the locus of all points the sum of whose distances from two fixed points is equal. Usually oval, an ellipse can be drawn by tying a string loosely between two nails, by pulling the string taut with a pencil point, and by swinging the pencil all the way around the two nails. These two nails in this simile are consciousness and matter. All things in the Universe lie somewhere on the ellipse itself. Māyā3 signifies this duality inherent in all things.
Māyā4 as primal matter, in R.’s view, is that from which all existence arises. He theorizes that “Māyā is also used for prakrti, the objective principle which the personal God uses for creation”….The world is traced to the development of prakrti which is also called māyā in the Advaita Vedānta, bu this prakrti or māyā is not independent of spirit. It is dependent on Brahman….