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The bondage felt by the mortal is caused by his own spiritual ignorance of the Divine that he is. This ignorance of his own all-fullness in his spiritual personality creates in his intellect waves of desires to make himself full. These desires create in him thought-waves, and thoughts express themselves in action. These three-ignorance, desire and action-are together called in Vedanta sastrā as the 'heartknots'. These are the bondages that bind the misunderstoodself, the Ego, to the finiteness and the sorrows of a mortal. In this stanza Sankara enumerates, "ignorance, desire, action and the like", meaning the residual impressions (Vāsanās ) left on the mind when a desire-prompted activity is consciously undertaken. These Vāsanās thicken our ignorance, darken our desires, agitate our thoughts and propel us into a world of frenzied activities.
The Acharya, naturally, asks as to who can save anybody from his own internal subjective chaos-in his intellectual and mental sheaths—which produces his rabid activities in his outer world of objects and his painful confusions in his relationship with his own fellow beings. The question in its very words answers that none can save another; one can save himself but by himself.
“Not even”, says the master, “In thousands of years" can one be saved by another. The term Kalpa is used to indicate the entire duration of one Universe from its day of creation to the day of its doom. It has been calculated that the life of the Universe is one day of the Creator which is equivalent to 432 million years, in terms of our calculation of time, possible with our finite and limited mind.
न योगेन न सांख्येन कर्मणा नो न विद्यया ।
ब्रह्मात्मैकत्वबोधेन मोक्षः सिध्यति नान्यथा ॥५६॥ na yogena na sānkhyena karmanā no na vidyaya brahmātmaikatyabodhena mokşah sidhyati nānyathā 56.
न - Not, योगेन - by Yoga, न - not, सांख्येन - by Sankhya, नो कर्मणा - not through actions, न विद्यया - not by learning, ब्रह्मात्मकत्वalha - by the realisation of the identity of oneself with Brahman, Hie: - liberation, faufa - is gained, 7 not, 3 y - otherwise.
