25. There is no lake of lotuses in the sky, nor is there a lotus growing in the gold mine, whose fragrance fills the air, and attracts the blue bees to suck its honey.
26. The goddess of ignorance—Avidyá, with her uplifted arms resembling the long stalks of lotus plants, laughs in exultation over her conquests, with the glaring light of shining moonbeams.
27. Such is the net of our wishes spread before us by our minds, which represent unrealities as real, and take a delight to dwell upon them, like children in their toys.
28. So also is the snare spread out by our own ignorance, all over this world, that it ensnares the busy people to their misery in all places, as it binds fast the ignorant men and boys in its chains.
29. Men are busied in worldly affairs with such thoughts, as these that, ‘I am poor and bound in this earth for my life; but I have my hands and feet wherewith I must work for myself’.
30. But they are freed from all affairs of this life, who know themselves as spiritual beings, and their spiritual part is neither subject to bondage nor labour. (They know themselves to be bodiless, in their embodied forms).
31. The thought that ‘I am neither flesh nor bones, but some thing else than my body,’ releases one from his bondage; and one having such assurance in him, is said to have weakened his avidyá or ignorance.
32. Ignorance (avidyá) is painted in the imagination of earthly men, to be as dark as the darkness which surrounds the highest pinnacle of Meru, blazing with the blue light of sapphire, or at the primeval darkness impenetrable by the solar light. (Hence ignorance and darkness are used as synonymous terms).
33. It is also represented by earth-born mortals, as the blackness which naturally covers the face of heaven by its own nature like the blue vault of the sky. (Thus Avidya is represented as the black and the blue goddess Kali).
34. Thus ignorance is pictured with a visible form, in the imagination of the unenlightened; but the enlightened never attribute sensible qualities to inanimate and imaginary objects.