2.24 · The First Link

Its cause is ignorance.

Word by word

tasya

its (the joining's)

hetuḥ

cause

avidyā

ignorance

Where it fits

Vyāsa narrows the question from the general meeting of all selves with the guṇas, discussed under 2.23, to each self's joining with its own mind (Woods p. 166). Its cause is ignorance, the first affliction (2.3–2.5). The diagnosis is now complete, and it points to the remedy: remove ignorance (2.25).

Reading

Here the diagnosis reaches its root: avidyā, the first of the five afflictions (2.3). These three words close a loop. Ignorance creates the false joining (2.17), which causes the suffering still to come (2.16). Vyāsa adds that an intellect steeped in mistaken knowing does not reach knowledge of the self, and so returns again, its task unfinished; once that task is done, it does not return. The chain is clear, and so is where it can be cut: at the first link.

Vyāsa

“An intellect steeped in the latent tendencies of mistaken knowledge does not reach knowledge of the self, the completion of its work; its task unfinished, it returns again. But when it reaches that completion, which ends in knowing the self, its task done, … it does not return.”

Vyāsa's Yoga-bhāṣya, the oldest commentary. New translation from the Sanskrit, with reference to Woods (1914), p. 166.

Practice

Draw the chain: ignorance, then joining, then suffering. Put one of your own recurring troubles at the end and trace it back, link by link, to a mistaken way of seeing.

A question to sit with

Where does this begin?

Key ideas

avidyā (ignorance), puruṣa (the seer, the self), citta (the mind-field)