Avidya Is The Breeding Ground For The Others Whether They Be Dormant, Attenuated, Interrupted Or Active

Ignorance is the breeding ground of the other kleśas, whether they are in a dormant, weak, intermittent, or fully activated state.

The causes of suffering are not seeing things as they are, the sense of ‘I’, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life.

Ignorance is the fertile soil,
and, as a consequence,
all other obstacles persist.
They may exist in any state – dormant, feeble, intermittent,
or fully operative.

The lack of awareness of Reality, the sense of egoism or ‘I-am-ness’, attractions and repulsions towards objects and the strong desire for life are the great afflictions or causes of all miseries in life.

The five afflictions which disturb the equilibrium of consciousness are: ignorance or lack of wisdom, ego, pride of the ego or the sense of ‘I’, attachment to pleasure, aversion to pain, fear of death and clinging to life.

Ignorance, egoism, attachment, hatred, and clinging to bodily life are the five obstacles.

Ignorance is the productive field of all these that follow, whether they are dormant, attenuated, overpowered, or expanded.

Of tbese, Nescience is the field, the breeding ground for the others that follow, the Egoism, &C., having a four-fold possible mode of their existence, as the dormant, the tenuous, the alternated and tvhe fully operative.

What is dormancy? It is the existence in the mind as power alone in the germinal state. It is awake when it turns its face towards its objects. In the case of him who pclssesses discriminative knowledge, the gerlns of the a>fflictions are singed, and therefore even on the object coming in front, they do not come into operation. How call the burned up seed sprout ? Hence, the wise man whose aiftictions are gone, is said to, have’ had his last birth. It is in him alone that the afflictions pass into the fifth state, that of the ~eed Eeing burnt up; inasmuch aEc the afflictions do exist in tbat state, although their mecl-powel has been bl~rnt up. It is for this reason that th& do not awaken even when an object comes in front of them. This i~ the dcnnancy of tlme whose seedpower has been burnt nh.

Tenuitv is now described. The afflictions become ten~~ous on being cut down by habituation to contrarie.:.

And they are alternated, inasmuch ss they disappear and appear over and over again in the same condition. Anger is not obser~wl to be in operation at the time of attachme~~t~. Anger does not arise when attachment has its play. Nor does it happen that attachment, while manifesting ai tll reference to one object, has cea.sed to exifit altogether with reference ‘to another object. Recmse Chaitra is attached to one wowan, it does llot follow that Ile is averse to otl~ers. The *fact is that in the one hie attachmel~t has manifestecl itself, while in others it can-be active in the future. It is tiris that hec~lnes either donnnnt, tenuous or alternated.

The fully operative is that which has found manifestation in the object.

All these do not pass beyold the sphere of affliction. What ie it . then that is cdled an affliction, whether it be the dormant, the alternated , or the R~lly operative? This i~ true. But they become either alternated ol* anv W one else, only when they appear as so qaalified. As all are removed hy l~abitnntion to contraries, a11 art? manifested bv m the operation of competent causes.

All these aiffictions are the modifications of Nescience only. How ? It is Nescience alone that is the quickness of their life. The afflictions appear only in the form which is put upon an object by Nescience. They are found existing simultaneously with the cognition of the unreal ; and they clisappear when Ne~cience disappears.-

~ Rāma Prasāda translation.