It is by the touch of ignorance (_avidyâ_) that this truth assumes all the phenomenal forms of existence.
In the all-conserving mind (_âlayavijñâna_) ignorance manifests itself; and from non-enlightenment starts that which sees, that which represents, that which apprehends an objective world, and that which constantly particularizes. This is called ego (_manas_). Five different names are given to the ego (according to its different modes of operation). The first name is activity-consciousness (_karmavijñâna_) in the sense that through the agency of ignorance an unenlightened mind begins to be disturbed (or
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[Footnote 1: Compare Chândogya, VI. 1. 4.]
awakened). The second name is evolving-consciousness (_prav@rttiivijñâna_) in the sense that when the mind is disturbed, there evolves that which sees an external world. The third name is representation-consciousness in the sense that the ego (_manas_} represents (or reflects) an external world. As a clean mirror reflects the images of all description, it is even so with the representation-consciousness. When it is confronted, for instance, with the objects of the five senses, it represents them instantaneously and without effort. The fourth is particularization-consciousness, in the sense that it discriminates between different things defiled as well as pure. The fifth name is succession-consciousness, in the sense that continuously directed by the awakening consciousness of attention (_manaskâra_) it (_manas_) retains all experiences and never loses or suffers the destruction of any karma, good as well as evil, which had been sown in the past, and whose retribution, painful or agreeable, it never fails to mature, be it in the present or in the future, and also in the sense that it unconsciously recollects things gone by and in imagination anticipates things to come. Therefore the three domains (_kâmaloka_, domain of feeling--_rûpaloka_, domain of bodily existence--_arûpaloka_, domain of incorporeality) are nothing but the self manifestation of the mind (i.e. _âlayavijñâna_ which is practically identical with _bhûtatathatâ_). Since all things, owing the principle of their existence to the mind (_âlayavijñâna_), are produced by sm@rti, all the modes of particularization are the self-particularizations of the mind. The mind in itself (or the soul) being however free from all attributes is not differentiated. Therefore we come to the conclusion that all things and conditions in the phenomenal world, hypostatized and established only through ignorance (_avidyâ_) and memory (_sm@rti_), have no more reality than the images in a mirror. They arise simply from the ideality of a particularizing mind. When the mind is disturbed, the multiplicity of things is produced; but when the mind is quieted, the multiplicity of things disappears. By ego-consciousness (_manovijñâna_) we mean the ignorant mind which by its succession-consciousness clings to the conception of I and Not-I and misapprehends the nature of the six objects of sense. The ego-consciousness is also called separation-consciousness, because it is nourished by the perfuming influence of the prejudices (_âsrava_), intellectual as well as affectional. Thus believing in the external world produced by memory, the mind becomes