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142
Hermann Kuhn
APPLICATION
event that the world outside this dense envelope is barely noticed.
We might feel perfectly normal and clear in this environment, but this is mainly due to the fact that we know no alternate state that may show us a different and more satisfying pattern of life. We live in a dense emotional cocoon we are hardly ever aware of. Though sometimes friends alert us to this condition, we know of no method to find our way out of this almost hypnotic state. None of the goals we pursue on this level leads systematically to the experience of higher stages.
It is a state of delusion and erroneous concepts of the world-mechanisms. All convictions, ideas, belief systems, viewpoints and opinions we found our life on retain us on this level - irrespective if we acquired them by our own efforts or accepted them from others. Even when presented with truth, we either are incapable of recognizing it or take it for false.
If we want to find our way out of this stage, we need to introduce new components to our life that open opportunities for growth. Otherwise it lasts eternally.
When we leave this stage (even if only for brief moments of insights), we proceed directly to the fourth stage (avirata-samyaktva) without experiencing gunasthana two and three.
2 - The second gunasthana (sasadana) is an interim level
we transit while falling from the third to the first stage. In this second stage delusion and error is beginning to take hold on us. The clear understanding we still could have regained in the third stage is already lost with only
1 see 'ATTRACTION TO KARMA', Sutra 12, commentary
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