body, has fulfilled its purpose of the fulfilment of a set of urges, its work is over. Then
it is cast out and there is the reconstitution of the existent urges into a new pattern
altogether. This new shape that they take according to their inner structures is the
cause behind a new type of body that is born. Then, this body that is born once again
becomes a new instrument for the operation of these urges.
Why do they operate? The purpose is self-exhaustion, as it was stated earlier. They
want to exhaust themselves by experience. The coming in contact of the senses and
the mind with the object is called experience; it is called bhoga. And, the purpose of
this bhoga or experience is apavarga or moksha—liberation.
This contact with the objects cannot cease as long as the mind continues to read
significance into the objects. If there is a value in a thing, we cannot abstain from
seeing it, because it is the value that draws one’s attention towards it. What is the
value? It is that the object can subserve a particular individualistic purpose of the
subject. Some needs of the subject can be fulfilled by the object—whatever be the
needs, according to the circumstance of the case. The value of the object is nothing
but the capacity of the object to fulfil the needs of the individual, and when the
capacity is not there, it has no value. When there is no value, one is not interested in
it, and then there will be no psychological transformation in respect of the perception
of an object. There would not be attachment.
Thus, attachment cannot cease as long as meaning is there in things, and meaning
cannot be absent as long as needs are felt within, and needs will not be absent as long
as we are what we are—which is a situation that is arisen on account of avidya: tasya
hetuḥ avidyā (II.24). We have originally committed a sin, a mistake, which
theologians call the ‘original sin’—the primitive fall of the individual from the cosmic,
the isolation of the conscious subject from the Universal subject. This is the real fall;
and this is avidya, specifically as well as generally.
As long as the subject-consciousness is isolated from Cosmic-consciousness, there
cannot be a remedy for this situation. The remedy is, once again, a resetting up of the
old constitution—namely, the harmonious adjustment of the subject-consciousness
with the Universal. But, this cannot easily take place for various reasons. It cannot
take place because the asmita, or the ego principle, is very vehement. It is very
forceful, very powerful, adamant, and it will not listen to any argument. Philosophy
will not work here because the intellect, which is the philosophising principle, is itself
a servant of the forces which are the causes of the birth of individuality which are
seeking satisfaction through contact. Therefore, tad abhāvāt saṁyogābhāvaḥ (II.25),
says the sutra. The contact of the subject with the objects outside can cease only
when ignorance ceases, and not before. As long as the root is there, the cause is there,
and so the effect must be there.
We cannot, by any amount of individualistic effort, wrench ourselves from contact
with objects. Merely because we close our eyes, it does not mean that we are not
thinking of the objects. Even our consciousness that we exist is an object-
consciousness, because self-consciousness is objectivity itself. Whatever be one’s
effort, it will not succeed here because the efforts do not ultimately obviate the
possibility of space-time-cause awareness and the consequent object-consciousness.
Therefore, avidya must go. If avidya goes, asmita goes. If asmita goes, raga and