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| The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 2 - The Steps to Union |
| 5. Avidya is the condition of confusing the permanent,
pure, blissful and the Self, with that which is impermanent, impure, painful and the
not-self. This condition of ignorance, or the "state of avidya" is
characteristic of all those who as yet do not discriminate between the real and unreal,
between death and immortality, and between light and darkness. It governs, therefore, life
in the three worlds, for the correspondence between [132] avidya on the physical plane as
experienced by man in incarnation is to be found on all planes. It is a limitation of
Spirit itself and a necessary corollary of form-taking. The spiritual unit is born blind
and senseless. It comes into form at the beginning of the ages and cycles of rebirth in a
state of total unawareness. It has to become aware of that which is around it; to do this
it has first to develop the senses whereby contact and awareness become possible. The
method and process through which the human being has evolved five senses or avenues of
approach to the not-self are well known and any standard physiological text book can
supply the needed information. Three factors must be borne in mind in connection with the
spiritual unit: He is doubly blind, for he is not only born blind and senseless but he is mentally
blinded also, and does not see himself or things as they are but makes the mistake of
regarding himself as the material form, and this he does for many cycles. He has no sense
of values or of proportion but looks upon the transient, suffering, unclean, material,
lower man (his three sheaths in their totality) as himself, the reality, He cannot
dissociate himself from his forms. The senses are part of the forms; they are not the
spiritual man, the [133] dweller in the form. They are part of the not-self and the medium
of its contact with the planetary not-self. Through discrimination and dispassion the self, who is permanent, pure, and blissful,
can eventually dissociate itself from the not-self which is impermanent, impure, and full
of pain. When this is not realized, the man is in a condition of avidya. When it is in
process of accomplishment, the man is a follower of vidya or knowledge, a fourfold path.
When the soul is known as it is and the not-self is relegated to its rightful place as a
sheath, vehicle or implement, then knowledge itself is transcended and the knower stands
alone. This is liberation and the goal. |
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