Vishnupurana 6.7.25

6.7.25

tad etat kathitaṃ bījam avidyāyā mayā tava
kleśānāṃ ca kṣayakaraṃ yogād anyan na vidyate //

When king Keśidhwaja heard these words, he was much pleased, and exclaimed, "It is well spoken!" Then addressing Kháńd́ikya affectionately, he said, "Listen to my words. Through desire of escaping death by the ignorance of works I exercise the regal power, celebrate various sacrifices, and enjoy pleasures subversive of purity. Fortunate is it for you that your mind has attached itself to the dominion of discrimination. Pride of your race! now listen to the real nature of ignorance. The (erroneous) notion that self consists in what is not self, and the opinion that property consists in what is not one's own, constitute the double seed of the tree of ignorance. The ill judging embodied being, bewildered by the darkness of fascination, situated in a body composed of the five elements, loudly asserts, 'This is I:' but who would ascribe spiritual individuality to a body in which soul is distinct from the ether, air, fire, water, and earth (of which that body is composed)? What man of understanding assigns to disembodied spirit corporeal fruition, or lands, houses, and the like, that it should say, 'These are mine?' What wise man entertains the idea of property in sous or grandsons begotten of the body after the spirit has abandoned it? Man performs all acts for the purpose of bodily fruition, and the consequence of such acts is another body; so that their result is nothing but confinement to bodily existence. In the same manner as a mansion of clay is plastered with clay and water, so the body, which is of earth, is perpetuated by earth and water (or by eating and drinking). The body, consisting of the five elements, is nourished by substances equally composed of those elements: but since this is the case, what is there in this life that man should be proud of? Travelling the path of the world for many thousands of births, man attains only the weariness of bewilderment, and is smothered by the dust of imagination. When that dust is washed away by the bland water of real knowledge, then the weariness of bewilderment sustained by the wayfarer through repeated births is removed. When that weariness is relieved, the internal man is at peace, and he obtains that supreme felicity which is unequalled and undisturbed. This soul is (of its own nature) pure, and composed of happiness and wisdom. The properties of pain, ignorance, and impurity, are those of nature (Prakriti), not of soul. There is no affinity between fire and water, but when the latter is placed over the former in a caldron it bubbles and boils, and exhibits the properties of fire. In like manner, when soul is associated with Prakriti it is vitiated by egotism and the rest, and assumes the qualities of grosser nature, although essentially distinct from them, and incorruptible. Such is the seed of ignorance, as I have explained it to you. There is but one cure of worldly sorrows, the practice of devotion; no other is known."