←
The Essence of the Tantra· 4.2 / 46

The Essence of the Tantra4.2

4.2

तथा हि विकल्पबलात् एव जन्तवो बद्धम् आत्मानम् अभिमन्यन्ते स अभिमानः संसारप्रतिबन्धहेतुः अतः प्रतिद्वन्द्विरूपो विकल्प उदितः संसारहेतुं विकल्पं दलयति इति अभ्युदयहेतुः

Transliteration (IAST)

tathā hi vikalpabalāt eva jantavo baddham ātmānam abhimanyante sa abhimānaḥ saṃsārapratibandhahetuḥ ataḥ pratidvandvirūpo vikalpa uditaḥ saṃsārahetuṃ vikalpaṃ dalayati iti abhyudayahetuḥ

— through the force of conceptual construction ; — living beings, creatures ; — the self as bound ; — imagine, conceive (with self-identification) ; — self-conception, false self-identification ; — the cause of bondage to transmigration ; — of counteracting/adversarial form ; — shatters, breaks apart ; — the cause of spiritual ascent/flourishing

For it is precisely through the force of conceptual construction that beings imagine the self to be bound; that false self-conception is the cause of bondage to transmigration. Hence a conceptual construct of counteracting form, once arisen, shatters the conceptual construct that is the cause of transmigration — and so it becomes a cause of spiritual ascent.