VIVEKACHUDAMANI 59
oneself with it, nourishes, bathes, and preserves it by means of ( agreeable ) sense-objects, by which latter he becomes bound as the caterpillar by the threads of
its cocoon.
[ ^izM<f^— keeps it clean and tidy.
Sense-objects &c.—¥l^ runs after sense-pleasures thinking that will conduce to the well-being of the body, but these in turn throw him into a terrible bondage, and he has to abjure them wholly to attain his freedom, as the caterpillar has to cut through its cocoon. ]
138. One who is overpowered by igno- xance mistakes a thing for what it is not : It is the absence of discrimination that causes one to mistake a snake for a rope and great dangers overtake him when he seizes it through that wTong notion. Hence, listen, my friend, it is the mistak- ing of transitory things as real that cons- titutes bondage.
[ Discrimination — between what is real (viz. the Self ) and what is not real (viz. the phenomenal world). ]
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