Ensnared in our own web

The silkworm spins a web out of the material that is secreted from its own belly and it thinks it is safe inside this cocoon. Unable to escape from this, it ultimately dies when man puts it into boiling water to extract silk from it. Similar is man’s fate, says Adi Shankaracharya in his ‘Vivekachudamani’.

Man is so enamored of sense objects and sense pleasures that he does not realise that they only appear pleasant and comforting, whereas in reality they are the shackles, the ropes of bondage from which he cannot extricate himself to improve his lot in life. The result of this bondage?

 “Immersion in this ocean of earthly life, death and again rebirth, being caught in this endless cycle,” says Shankara.  What is the root cause for this bondage, this attachment to the sense objects of this world? “It is superimposition” says Shankara.

A building is erected on top of a foundation. The problem arises when one is mistaken for the other. The two are different -  the base and what is built or superimposed on it.
When what is superimposed is mistaken to be the base itself, it is called ignorance. In the realm of philosophy, this is explained as “mistaking a thing to be what it actually is not”.

When a piece of rope lying on the ground is mistaken to be a serpent, it leads to unnecessary fear. “Taking unreal things to be real is what is called bondage,” says Shankara.

 Bondage arises out of ignorance, inability to  distinguish between what is real and what is unreal.

The real is the base, the substratum, the supreme power that controls this creation, from which we derive our very existence.

The unreal are the objects of this world, the material pleasures to which we are so attached.

 This attachment blinds us to the extent that we foolishly chase one dream after the other in a never ending cycle, which ultimately leads to pain, misery, disillusionment, frustration, downfall and even destruction.

“So blinded are men, that they do not see the effulgent divinity inside their very beings. Like the moon eclipsing the sun, sense pleasures conceal the true power inside man, ensnaring him in their web,” says Shankara.