Mandukya_Upanishad

tensions. The jīva tries to work out a method of release oftensions by what is called fulfilment of desires, because,ultimately these tensions can be boiled down to unfulfilleddesires. It appears on the surface that by a fulfilment of thedesires the tensions can be released and we can enter intoasti-bhāti-priya by coming in contact with nāmā and rūpa.But the method that we adopt is an erroneous one. It is truethat desires have to be fulfilled, and unless they are fulfilledthere cannot be release of tension. But how are we to fulfilthe desires? We adopt a very wrong method; therefore, wenever fulfil our desires completely, at any time, in all thebirths that we take. The desires cannot be fulfilled bycontact with objects, because a contact excites a furtherdesire for a repetition of the contact which, again, in turn,excites an additional desire, and this cycle goes on endlessly– desire for things and things exciting desires, desire forthings and things exciting desires. This cycle is the wheel ofsamsāra, again. By contact with things, desires are notfulfilled. On the other hand, desires are ignited, as it were,into a state of conflagration by such contact. Desires ariseon account of an ignorance of the structure of things.Unless this ignorance is removed, the tension is not goingto be released. And, what is this ignorance? The ignorancein the form of the notion that multiplicity is a reality; andthat by an aggregate of all the finite things constituting themultiplicity, we can have the infinite satisfaction that welong for. A total of the finites is not the infinite, andtherefore contact with finite things cannot bring infinitesatisfaction. Nāmā-rūpa-prapanca is, therefore, not the way38