12.204
The teacher said.
Beings are classified into four types: immobile and mobile. It is said that these beings originate from the unmanifest and dissolve into the unmanifest. One should understand that the mind, too, ends in the unmanifest and is of the nature of the unmanifest.
Just as the great aśvattha tree is hidden within its seed and, when it grows, is seen to have arisen from the unmanifest, so too is the origin of things from the unmanifest.
Just as both the magnet and the object made of magnet, though both insentient, rush toward each other due to their inherent nature, so too are other such states arising from their own inherent causes.
Similarly, the entities that arise from the unmanifest, characterized by causality, belong to the doer; the unconscious ones are joined to the conscious one by the cause.
There was neither earth, nor sky, nor heaven, nor any beings, nor sages, nor gods or asuras; nothing else existed except for life; they did not attain union.
According to all rules, that which is all-pervading, the cause of the mind, and possesses characteristics, is designated as the action of ignorance; this is described as having the characteristics of a cause.
That, indeed, united with causes, is the agent that gathers effects; by which this great wheel, without beginning or end, turns.
The wheel, whose hub is the unmanifest, whose spokes are the manifest, whose rim is the modifications, presided over by the knower of the field, and whose axle is well-oiled, revolves steadily.
Because of its smoothness, the whole world in this wheel is pressed like sesame; just as sesame is pressed by presses, so too is the world seized by enjoyments arising from ignorance.
Action is performed out of desire, ego, and appropriation; in the conjunction of effect and cause, he is established as the cause.
The cause does not surpass the effect, nor is the effect itself the cause; but in the context of the instruments of actions, time is endowed with causality.
The primordial natures and their modifications, endowed with causes, always interact with one another under the supervision of the puruṣa.
Just as dust, moved by the wind, follows only the knower of the field (the soul) when fallen under the influence of rajas and tamas and endowed with the force of causes, so too the state is not touched by those qualities, nor are those qualities touched by that great soul.
Just as wind may be with or without dust, so should the wise know the difference between the field and the knower of the field. Through practice, one so engaged does not return to nature again.
The revered sage dispelled this doubt that had arisen. In this way, one should examine news that is characterized by established and measured qualities.
Just as seeds that have been burnt by fire do not sprout again, so too, when the self is burnt by knowledge, it is not bound again by afflictions.
