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The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book 2 - The Steps to Union
3. These are the difficulty producing hindrances: avidya (ignorance), and the sense of personality, desire, hate and the sense of attachment. These are the five wrong ideas or concepts which for aeons of time and throughout many lives, prevent the sons of men from realizing that they are sons of God. It is these concepts which lead men to identify themselves with that which is lower and material, and to forget the divine realities. It is these misconceptions which make a prodigal son of the divine Monad, and which send [128] him forth into the far country to eat of the husks of mortal existence. It is these which must be overcome and eliminated before a man can "lift up his eyes" and see again the vision of the Father and the Father's Home and so be enabled to tread consciously the Path of return. It might be pointed out that two of the hindrances, avidya and sense of personality, relate to man, the synthesis upon the physical plane, that desire has relation to his astral body or vehicle of feeling, and that hate and a sense of attachment are products of the sense of egoism (the ahamkara principle) which animate the mental body. Thus the threefold personality is the field for the seeds and in the soil of the personal life in the three worlds do these seeds propagate and flourish and grow up to obstruct and hinder the real man. These seeds must be destroyed, and in their destruction three things eventuate: Karma is worked off, Liberation is achieved, The vision of the soul is perfected.
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