The Freedom of Pure Consciousness

¹ Such powers can be attained:

• from birth
• through herbs
• mantra repetition
• renunciation

² These powers allow the transformation of static Prakrti when it overflows. ³ This is similar to a farmer who diverts a wild stream for use in irrigation. In this way, the cause and effects of the phenomenal world are better controlled.

Ego and Samskaras

⁴ The creation of ego leads to the creation of mind. ⁵ In this way, one consciousness becomes many egos, leading to a vast array of distinctive perceptions.

⁶ But when that consciousness is always fixed in dhyana, it is not affected by samskaras. ⁷ In this way, the actions of a realized yogi do not bring good or evil karma, whereas the actions of others may bring good, evil, or neutral karma.

⁸ The karma of actions come from those samskaras depending on the qualities of those samskaras. ⁹ The memory of the samskaras stretches uninterruptedly across the demarcations of birth, place, and time.

¹⁰ Action-samskara-reaction have always existed, because the will to exist is eternal. ¹¹ Since its cause, effect, basis, and object are inseparable, a samskara disappears when all of them disappear.

¹² The past and future are immanent possibilities in a soul, taking diverse paths according to that soul’s dharma.

¹³ These possibilities manifest according to the gunas [tamasic, rajasic, sattvic] that influence the soul. ¹⁴ This transforms the seeming oneness of an object’s inherent qualities.

¹⁵ This is why people perceive the same object differently, as each person’s perception follows a separate path from another’s. ¹⁶ But the object itself is not dependent on any of those perceptions. If it were dependent, then what would happen to it when nobody was looking?

¹⁷ It is mind that applies its colors onto an object, for it to perceive that object. Otherwise, the object cannot be known. ¹⁸ The various changing colors of minds are always known by Pure Consciousness which is their ultimate, unchanging witness.

¹⁹ It is Pure Consciousness that gives light to see those other minds. ²⁰ This is because Pure Consciousness cannot see Itself.

²¹ If Pure Consciousness could see Itself, then the chain of such perceptions would regress infinitely, imploding memory. ²² This is why Pure Consciousness takes the form of different minds, to reflect itself as it perceives Itself through Its unchanging self-perception.

²³ Then, It sees all the colors painted by minds, fulfilling Its purposes.

The Path to Freedom

²⁴ Minds are colored by countless latent traits for another purpose – to gain freedom. ²⁵ This other purpose is discovered by someone who realizes that the soul can end the activities of the mind.

²⁶ The mind, who has gained this realization, can gravitate toward freeing and unburdening his mind.

²⁷ It realizes that freedom is prevented by the perceptions from the samskaras. ²⁸ These distractions can be subdued in the same way the causes of suffering are subdued, as explained earlier.

²⁹ The highest state is achieved when one sees phenomena without any attachments and sees the dharma through samadhi. ³⁰ This realization extinguishes both the causes of suffering and the cycle of cause and effect.

³¹ Once all the layers and imperfections concealing truth have been washed away, insight is boundless, with little left to know. ³² Then the seamless flow of reality, as well as the gunas, begins to break down, fulfilling the true mission of consciousness.

³³ One can then see that reality is made up of individual moments that transform into the other in a flow.

³⁴ Pure consciousness, with the gunas eliminated, reverses the flow of bondage and gets the freedom and power to see its own true form.