From the supreme Self, there arises a wondrous power of consciousness—illumination itself—which gathers to her side the companions of space, time, and action. Yet, though she pervades the infinite, this consciousness does not recognize her own true nature. She imagines herself to be limited, even though her real being is ever undivided and boundless. Whenever this supreme beloved, the light of consciousness, conceives a form for herself, then immediately the perceptions of name, number, and all distinctions follow her. In this very state, consciousness remains distinct from the embodied self, yet, being infinite, she swiftly enters into the embodied state—just as a wave rises from the vast ocean and merges again. Just as bracelets and armlets are not truly different from gold, so too the forms imagined by consciousness are only partial aspects of the one Self. And just as one lamp kindles many others with its own flame, so the forms arising in consciousness are but variations, shaped by differences of place, time, and measure. Stirred by the movements of place and time, consciousness follows the current of thought and enters the state of calculation and measurement. O mighty-armed one, the form of consciousness imagined by conceptualization and situated in time, place, and action is called the “knower of the field.” The “field” is said to be the body, and the one who knows it—both outwardly and inwardly, without division—is called the “knower of the field.” This knower, fabricating desires, again assumes the state of ego; and when this ego is determined, it is called the intellect associated with time. The intellect, shaped by intention, becomes the ground of thought. The mind, dense with varied imaginations, gradually assumes the nature of the senses. The wise know the body as composed of hands, feet, and the senses. This body is born into the world, it dies, and yet it also lives. In this way, the individual soul is intention itself, bound by the cord of latent impressions and caught in the net of sorrow, gradually taking on the state of mind. Just as fruit, under the force of ripening, passes into another state, so too the soul, due to impurity, changes its state—not because of action, but because of its condition. The soul attains the state of egoity, and the ego becomes intellect; intellect, enveloped by intentions, reaches the state of mind. The mind, indeed, is made of intention, always grasping at forms. It is defined by its opposites and is affected by what is imposed from outside. Desires and other powers, like cows following a bull or rivers flowing to the sea, chase after the intoxicated mind, seeking fault. Thus, the mind, composed of many powers and dense with egoity, is bound by its own will, like a silkworm entangled in the thread it spins. Continually following its own imaginations, it binds itself with fetters to the body; then, tormented by distress, it cries, “Alas, I am bound!” Thinking itself bound, it gradually abandons the essence of true knowledge and gives rise within to ignorance—the demon haunting the jungle of worldly existence. Dwelling in the web of subtle elements it has itself imagined, it falls into utter helplessness, like a lion in chains. Driven by latent tendencies, it assumes various roles as the doer of many actions, and new states arise, shaped solely by its own will. Sometimes it is called mind, sometimes intellect, sometimes knowledge, sometimes action; sometimes it is known as ego, sometimes as the subtle body. At times it is described as nature, at times as illusion; sometimes as mind, sometimes as action. Sometimes it is called bondage, sometimes clearly as mind; sometimes as ignorance, sometimes as desire. This, O Raghava, is the mind bound here: afflicted with sorrow, seized by craving and grief, the abode of disease, and ever suffering. Afflicted by the delusions of old age and death, struck down by the imagination of worldly existence, seized by actions done and undone, it is stained with the color of the cave of ignorance. Its form is contracted by desire—the fresh sprout of the tree of action—its origin utterly forgotten, fabricating imagined misfortunes. Bound like a cocoon-maker, having reached the state of the cocoon-maker, composed of subtle elements, it is scorched by the heat of countless hells. Though unseen, it bears a weight equal to a great mountain, adorned with the branches of old age and death—the poisonous, dreadful tree of worldly existence. This entire worldly existence, binding with the cords of hope and bearing within it fruitlessness, is like a banyan seed containing a barren banyan tree. Burnt by the flames of anxious thought, chewed by the serpent of anger, struck by the waves of the ocean of desire, it forgets its own origin and source. Like a deer separated from its herd, the mind is afflicted by sorrow; like a moth burnt in a blazing fire, it is scorched in the fire of sense-objects. Like a lotus with its root cut, it falls into utter withering; its hope severed, displaced from its own place, enduring hardship in a foreign land. Amidst sensory pleasures, among those appearing as friends or foes, it is tossed about in countless states and greatly troubled in difficult situations. Fallen into intense suffering, like a bird caught in a snare, it is bound within the net of the world, in the emptiness of the city of the Gandharvas. The mind, driven by sense-objects, is carried away in the ocean of misfortune. O Rama, lift it up, as one would rescue an elephant from the mud, with the strength of immortality. The mind, sunk like an ox in the marsh of thought, its limbs wounded and torn—raise it forcefully, O Rama. One whose mind does not give rise to compassion, even when afflicted by the flow of good and evil, scorched by the fire of old age, death, and sorrow—such a one, O Rama, is a demon in the world. In this way, living beings, destroyed by the thought of worldly existence arising from the mind, are countless and innumerable, lacking the true form of Brahman.