Shankara was an Illusionist; Aurobindo was a Realist ( “Maya is real, because it is the Self’s experience of the Self” )
The term assigned by Sankara to the whole process of creation was Maya. Aurobindo, on the other hand, called it Leela or the play of the Divine. Leela includes the idea of Maya and exceeds it !
” This is our Eternal Lover luring us to Himself, through all these flashy masks of Himself, through all this shimmering blazes of His eternal and ineffugable Self-Existence ” said the Master !