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VIVEKACUDAMANI
has for its final step samyagdarśana or right understanding of the nature of Brahman. By this śloka, it is said that such samyagdarśananiṣṭhā is the direct means to mokṣa and that for one being a yogārūḍha (to be explained presently) what is synonymous with it, namely, absolute detachment or vairagya is the chief means for such a nişṭhā. Explaining the nature of one who may be said to be a yogārūḍha, the Lord says in the Gītā: yadāhi nendriyārtheṣu na karmasvanuṣajjate sarvasankalpasaṁnyasi yogāruḍhastadocyate || "One is said to be a yogarūḍha when one is not attracted by objects of senses and is not attached to actions (to secure them)." From this it follows that samyagdarśananiṣṭhā alone which is preceded by supreme detachment is the means to salvage a person from the ocean of
samsara.
Samsara is likened to an ocean as it corresponds to it in all features. The waves in this ocean are five i.e., klesa (misery), avidya (nescience), asmita (confounding the non-atman with the atman), rāga, (attachment) and abhiniveśa (the fear of death even among the learned-viduṣopi maranabhitiḥ); delusion is the whirlpool in that ocean; wife, friends, wealth and kinsmen are the aquatic monsters in it; anger is the fierce heat in its depth (balabāgni); lust is the net in which one is caught. To the same effect Śrī Bhagavatpāda says in his Laksminṛsimhastotra: "O Lord! Extend to me Thy helping hand to rescue me from the vast ocean of samsara beset with the all-devouring monster of time, and from my being lost in the mounting waves of passions."
Accordingly, samsara is compared to an ocean. It is the embodiment of avidya and its effects, and it cannot be crossed without the aid of samyagjñāna (perfect wisdom). A person who thinks of his body which is non-atman as the atman cannot know that when the body is born or dies, these, birth and death, which relate to it do not pertain to the atman, that hunger and thirst are features only of the prāņa (breath), that joy and sorrow relate to the antahkarana (the inner mental organ) and that these do not affect the atman. Thus nescience (avidya) confounding the atman with the non-ātman, desire and aversion, attachment, etc., display themselves in a successive series. Hence the comparison of klesa, etc. with waves in the ocean. Delusion itself is the great whirlpool which one is sucked into. Avarta is the idea of a thing in what is not that (atasmin tadbuddhiḥ).
On account of the operation of beginningless avidya, a person speaks of himself as ajña (ignorant), kartā (doer) and manusya