She moves through the worlds like a trail of smoke that clings to the limbs, bringing burning and sweat, having absorbed the essence of all she passes through. Her stream is long and drawn out, shaped by inertia, flowing like rain from a cloud; her cord is strong, yet woven from insubstantial clusters, like a rope made of blades of grass. She is known only through imagination, likened to a wave or a lotus—full of holes like a lotus stem, thick with mud, and composed of a heavy dullness. She appears as a flame, always striving to grow, yet never truly increasing; sweet in the beginning, like the taste of poison, but ultimately becoming exceedingly harsh. Then, she vanishes like the flame of a lamp—none know where she goes; like mist seen from afar, when one tries to grasp her, she is nothing at all. Spread out like a handful of dust, she is observed as atomic, yet she is also like a haze in the sky, appearing without any cause. She arises as confusion—like seeing two moons, or as the delusion of a dream. Just as someone on a moving ship perceives motion in a stationary object, so does she appear here. When the mind is afflicted by her, people experience for a long time the bewildering dream of worldly existence, filled with trouble and restlessness. Even what is pleasing and true is sometimes seen as real, sometimes as unreal; what is displeasing and false is sometimes seen as unreal, sometimes as real. When the mind is disturbed by such confusion, various delusions arise and vanish within it, like waves on the ocean’s surface. This imagination, endowed with force, mounts the chariot of objects and swiftly seizes the mind, just as a net captures a bird. Out of compassion, a mother, her eyes full of affection and her breasts moist with flowing milk, is led into the life of a householder, delighting in the joy of her child. Even the moon, though full of nectar and moist, quickly becomes poisonous and destroys the three worlds when it grows too large. Even those steady as pillars can be made to act with the confusion of madmen, ghosts, or drunkards; even the mute may speak, when the mind is thus affected. At twilight and other such times, by the influence of this mind, people see snakes on clods of earth, stones, and walls. Just as a single moon appears as two when seen with double vision, or a distant shore seems near in a dream, so does the mind create such illusions. A long span can seem as brief as a moment, just as a long night passes quickly; a moment can seem like a year, as it does for those separated from their beloved. There is nothing that this restless mind does not name or create; but see, O Raghava, the powerlessness of this mind when it is empty of possessions. One should diligently restrain consciousness by consciousness itself; by blocking the flow of awareness, this river of the mind dries up. By what does not exist, by what is frail and utterly empty, by what is called false imagination, this world is wondrously cast into darkness. By what is formless, without shape, lacking pure awareness, and perishing swiftly like the unreal, this world is wondrously cast into darkness. By what perishes without light, flickers within darkness, and has the nature of an owl’s vision, this world is wondrously cast into darkness. By what acts only in evil ways, cannot bear to be seen, and does not even recognize the body, this world is wondrously cast into darkness. By what follows the conduct of the wise, is always naturally beautiful, and is continually setting, this world is wondrously cast into darkness. The world is strangely blinded by one who is always afflicted with endless suffering, led by misguided resolve, and lacking in true understanding. The world is strangely blinded by one whose body is insentient, whose mouth spreads darkness, and whose breast is dense with desire and anger. The world is strangely blinded by one who dwells at the threshold of the dark well of the self, dulled by inertia and aged by dullness, endlessly lamenting in sorrow. The world is strangely blinded by one who shatters relationships, is afflicted by disease and unbroken illusion, and who is ever-changing in intentions. The man who cannot endure even the sight of her, who is unprotected by such a woman, is strangely blinded. The man is strangely blinded by such a woman, who has no awareness, and who perishes even though she is not destroyed. O Lord, this one, who endlessly indulges in difficult passions, who brings about both pleasure and pain through rise and decline—by what tendency does she dissolve, bound by the impressions that dwell in the cave of the mind? O Brahman, how does this great blindness, arising from the power of ignorance in the world or in man, come to an end? Just as a lotus covered with frost perishes instantly when sunlight appears, so too does this ignorance vanish upon the vision of the Self. So long as it endures, this ignorance agitates the embodied being, tossing him among the waves of worldly existence, in the thickets of suffering and pain. Until the desire for Self-realization, which alone destroys delusion, arises within him, this ignorance does not begin to be destroyed. When one begins to see beyond this ignorance, the dissolution of self-ignorance commences, just as a shadow starts to disappear when exposed to sunlight, O Raghava. And when the all-pervading divine is seen, the shadow itself dissolves, just as all shadows vanish when the twelve-rayed sun rises in the sky. Here, ignorance is nothing but mere imagination; its destruction is called liberation, and this is accomplished, O Raghava, by the mere cessation of thought-construction. Even the slightest wound in the darkness of latent tendencies within the sky of the mind causes its blackness to thin, due to the rising of the sun of consciousness. Just as darkness disappears somewhere when the sun rises, so too does ignorance dissolve somewhere when discernment arises.