Sūtra 2.5

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation of sūtra 2.5:

अनित्याशुचिदुःखानात्मसु नित्यशुचिसुखात्मख्यातिरविद्या ॥ २.५ ॥

anityāśuciduḥkhānātmasu nityaśucisukhātmakhyātiravidyā || 2.5 ||

(5) Avidyā consists in regarding a transient object as everlasting, an impure object as pure, misery as happiness and the non-self as self.

Ancient and Modern interpretation:

As per sūtra II.5, the human body is always unclean.To consider this body as clean,desirable and companionable is false knowledge.People look at external world around them including their own personality as ‘self’ (puruṣa).

Pañcāśikā says,^[1]

‘Those who regard animate and inanimate objects as part of their own self and rejoice at their prosperity and bemoan their decay are all victims of delusion.’

Of the four symptoms of avidyā, the sense of permanence in transient things is the chief one in the abhiniveśa kleśa, in attachment the chief one is sense of purity in impure things, feeling pleasure in affliction is predominant as hatred is aform of misery, while considering things not pertaing to self as one’s own is dominant in the sense of the ego (asmitā).

Osho says, ^[2]

‘Lack of awareness is taking the transient for the eternal,the impure for pure,the painful as pleasurable and the non-self for the self.’

Avidyā is what Gurdjieff used to call ‘the spiritual sleep’. Man lives in a deep hypnosis induced sleep. Avidyā (lack of awareness) is a slavery of the hypnosis that nature has bought on you. Yoga is transcending this slavery and becoming a master.

Everybody has a unique way of being,and that is purity.To follow your own being is purity.Awareness is to be aware that you are not the body.

In Tattvabodha, Śaṅkarācārya also says,^[3]

“Brahman alone is the nitya, eternal factor.Everything else is impermanent.”

Buddha also emphasizes on anityatā, continuous flux.Nothing is permanent in the world.This continuous change is the cause of human misery.

Every moment thousands of human cells die in the body and thousands of new cells are born. Every moment the body is new with new cells and also approaching old age.Our thoughts are also changing depending upon the social environment around us.but we think that it’s same me who is living this life from birth to death.

It is similar to the flame of burning candle. The flame light is contiously diminishing and new light rays are replacing it. Still, we feel the flame as ‘stable and steady, nitya ’.

Similarly, one feels that life is continuously flowing between past, present and future. But actually, it is a joining of moments together.Hence Buddha says, “Life is a flux”, but we feel that its ‘steady’ due to avidyā.

Similarly,due to avidyā, we presume unclean things as clean.A person will start hating the physical body, if viewed from inside.Further even if one wears good ironed cloths and decorates himself with good cloths, ornaments etc externally,and the mind is full of evil thoughts, then the external cleanliness has zero value.Mind cleansing is necessary for chitta vṛttinirodha.

Avidyā also makes one feel happy even in miserable situations;e.g. parrot starts feeling happy in his cage as he has not experienced ‘free flying in jungle’ anytime in his life.Similarly, man is always engrossed in carrer,status,society,relationships etc.One doesnot want to enjoy freedom of being alone, but a yogī always sees the seeds of sorrow in this so-called happiness.

One more aspect of avidyā is dominance of I-consciousness. Ātman is not my body, my mind or my thinking,my ego as Śaṅkarācārya says,^[4] just as right information removes the wrong notion about the directions,so too,the knowledge that is gained as a result of experience of the truth, destroys the ignorance that is characterised by the notions of ‘I-ness’ and ‘my-ness’.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Araṇya, op.cit,p.121

[2]:

Osho, op.cit.,p.61-84

[3]:

Śaṅkarācārya, Tattvabodha, 1 — [...]

[4]:

Swami Chinmayananda (Tr.), Atmabodha of Śaṅkarācārya,Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, Mumbai, 2014,p.113.—[...] || 46 ||