Repeated actions with a view to gaining some desired results can bind the human mind. Sri Adi Sankaracharya in the Vivekachoodamani gives a very scientific flow chart to it.
The seed of the tree of change and transformation called Samsara is dullness and ignorance of the true self. The first sprout of this tree is the idea that the body is myself. Once the sprout is out, there comes tender leaves called desires or seeking after objects of joy in the world outside. The tree of life is watered by constant actions in the direction of desires.
The trunk of the tree of Samsara which gives the strong support for the tree is the body itself. The many branches of the tree which spread in all directions are the different vital airs—the prana, apana, vyana, samana and udana. The sense organs, which direct the mind in its outward search for happiness, are the twigs, and the flowers are the sense objects of seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching. Sorrow is the fruit of this tree of Samsara. Whatever we may think is joyful in this world will only end in some kind of sorrow or the other.
The individual being called the jeeva is like a bird perched on the tree of change as it pecks on the fruits of sorrow and considers it to be its great enjoyment.
The root of the tree is ignorance and its bondage is identifying the I with the body that confines the human being. This bondage is there ever since creation, and it can go on endlessly too. Does it give any joy to the one who experiences? No way! It is the cause for a continuous flow of birth, death, sorrow, suffering and old age.
This bondage caused by erroneous thinking cannot be destroyed by any weapons of recall, neither by weapons that can just be thrown at the target, nor by fire, nor by doing crores of actions. It can only be destroyed by the intrinsic discriminative thinking of what is real and what is not with the blessing of a purified intellect that it can be cut asunder.
This Samsara or change can be destroyed from its roots only by contemplation on the words of the scriptures that talk of the Self and by doing one’s own prescribed actions. Performing one’s duties purifies the intellect and prepares the individual to know the true self. It is with this knowledge that the self is realised.
The writer is Sevika, Chinmaya Mission, Coimbatore (www.chinmayamission.com); email: sharanya.chaitanya@chinmayamission.com