elusive sm@rti. The multitude of people (_bahujana_) are said to be
lacking in enlightenment, because ignorance (_avidya_) prevails
there from all eternity, because there is a constant succession of
sm@rti (past confused memory working as instinct) from which
they have never been emancipated. But when they are divested
of this sm@rti they can then recognize that no states of mentation,
viz. their appearance, presence, change and disappearance, have
any reality. They are neither in a temporal nor in a spatial relation
with the one soul, for they are not self-existent.
"This high enlightenment shows itself imperfectly in our corrupted
phenomenal experience as prajna (wisdom) and karma
(incomprehensible activity of life). By pure wisdom we understand
that when one, by virtue of the perfuming power of dharma,
disciplines himself truthfully (i.e. according to the dharma), and
accomplishes meritorious deeds, the mind (i.e. the _alayavijnana_)
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which implicates itself with birth and death will be broken down
and the modes of the evolving consciousness will be annulled, and
the pure and the genuine wisdom of the Dharmakaya will manifest
itself. Though all modes of consciousness and mentation are
mere products of ignorance, ignorance in its ultimate nature is
identical and non-identical with enlightenment; and therefore
ignorance is in one sense destructible, though in another sense
it is indestructible. This may be illustrated by the simile of the
water and the waves which are stirred up in the ocean. Here
the water can be said to be both identical and non-identical
with the waves. The waves are stirred up by the wind, but the
water remains the same. When the wind ceases the motion of
the waves subsides, but the water remains the same. Likewise
when the mind of all creatures, which in its own nature is pure and
clean, is stirred up by the wind of ignorance (_avidya_), the waves
of mentality (_vijnana_) make their appearance. These three (i.e.
the mind, ignorance, and mentality) however have no existence,
and they are neither unity nor plurality. When the ignorance is
annihilated, the awakened mentality is tranquillized, whilst the
essence of the wisdom remains unmolested." The truth or the
enlightenment "is absolutely unobtainable by any modes of relativity
or by any outward signs of enlightenment. All events in
the phenomenal world are reflected in enlightenment, so that they
neither pass out of it, nor enter into i
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