maya

"The word maya comes from the root ma, which means 'to build or measure forth.' Maya has three powers. One power is called the obscuring power; it obscures our understanding of the pure light. The second power is called the projecting power. It converts the pure light into the forms of the phenomenal world as a prism turns white light into colors of the rainbow. These are the powers that turn the transcendent into the temporal, spatial world that we know and all its things.

"Now, if you take the colors and put them on a disk and spin the colors, they will reveal white again. The colors of this world can be so inflected; they can be arranged in so artful a way that they will let you experience through to the true light. This is called the revealing power of maya -- and the function of art is to serve that end. The artist is meant to put the objects of the world together in such a way that through them you will experience that light, that radiance which is the light of our consciousness and which all things both hide and, when properly looked upon, reveal." --Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss.