7 6 At night, by the grace of the moon-
light, the clouds in the sky can be
seen moving. Yet the moon itself appears to
be moving, just as a living being appears to
be moving because of false identification with

matter.

At night in the rainy season the moving clouds reflecting
the moonlight make the moon appear to be moving. This is
called illusion. The spirit soul, or the living being, is the root of atl
the activities of the material body, but because of illusion the spirit
soul remains covered by the gross and subtle material bodies.
Thus covered, the conditioned soul identifies with the material
body and thus becomes subject to the sense of false ego.

This false ego obliges a living being to consider his material
body to be his self, the offspring of the body to be his children,
and the land of the birth of the body to be an object of worship.
Thus the living being’s conception of nationalism is another type
of ignorance. Because of ignorance a living being identifies him-

self with the land of his birth and moves with the misconceptions
of national ideas. In fact, however, a living being does not belong
to any nation or species of life. He has nothing to do with the
body, as the moon has nothing to do with the moving clouds.

The moon is far away from the clouds and is fixed in its own
orbit, but illusion presents a scene in which the moon appears to
be moving. A living being should not float with the misconcep-
tion of the temporary body; he must always know himself to be
transcendental to the bodily identity. This is the path of knowl-
edge, and complete knowledge fixes the living being in the orbit
of spiritual activities.

The spiritual living force is always active by nature. By illusion
his activities are wrongly directed in relation with the body, but in
the liberated condition of complete knowledge his activities are
conducted in spiritual devotion. Liberation does not mean stop-
ping activities; it means being purified of illusory activities and
becoming transcendental to relations with the gross and subtle
bodies.a

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