THE OBSTACLE-TRIAD

[Ms Tercy Lonan]

THE OBSTACLE-TRIAD
You must cultivate the flowers of Divine virtues in the garden of your heart. It is from virtue
that one rises to holiness, from holiness to godliness and from godliness to God-experience. From
impurity one rises to purity, from purity to sanctity and from sanctity into sublime spiritual
experience.
The ascent of the individual soul unto the shining peaks of the experience of the Absolute on
the practical path of Sadhana is attended with three barriers which must have to be overcome. The
first one is a state of grossness arising out of a total identification with the body-house in which we
reside. This identification has made us feel that we are ourselves, this body and this body is
ourselves.
No matter how much we may mouth the words “I am not this body,” yet the very next
instant our actual life and behaviour demonstrate our body-consciousness in effect, however much
we may assert the contrary. If someone suddenly comes and says: “You fool! You are wasting your
time in sitting there, why don’t you go and work?”, then your temper will immediately flare up and
you will be in a state of anger. Vedanta will vanish and the intellect will suddenly give way to the fit
of anger that has arisen in the mind due to a long force of habit. Now Mr. so and so, the immortal
Atman, Satchidananda, beyond mind and body and beyond all the pairs of opposites, immediately
gets up and prepares to fight. Your mind is in turmoil. It is agitated and is thinking: “How can I
repay this fellow?” Anger flares up and the mind is thrown into agitation, and you want to go and
punch the man in the nose. You have completely and totally forgotten, “I am the peaceful and
ever-blissful Satchidananda Atman beyond name and form; the one without a second, all-full,
complete and all-bliss.”
This is an example of falling down from the beautiful state of your Atmic nature into the
ugliness and falsity of your lower nature owing to anger which is a kind of impurity (Mala).
Similarly also greed, passion, selfishness, arrogance, envy and jealousy etc., constitute the
impurities of human nature and every now and then they spring up and overpower the mind. The
Atmic consciousness is then obscured and pettiness, dishonesty, intolerance, pride and the thought
of “How dare one address me like this?” come into the mind.
These are all called impurities and are the basic blemishes of the human personality. These
blemishes constantly plague the human individual and need be eliminated if you are to rise into a
higher state of consciousness.
These impurities constantly put the mind into a state of agitation and activity. They never
allow the mind to be calm and serene. As long as these gross impurities draw the mind outward to

unspiritual action every moment, you cannot expect to sustain one unbroken current of thought of
the Supreme Reality.
Due to impurities, the mind is drawn always into a state of restlessness, outgoing movement
and agitation. This is the second barrier called Vikshepa. This has also to be overcome.
Still deeper in your mind is the third barrier called Avarana. It is a mysterious veil over the
inner depths of your consciousness which holds you in a state of ignorance of your higher nature.
Avarana is non-awareness owing to nescience, the basic ignorance. This veil is made up of the
identification of the body-mind-consciousness.
These three—Mala, Vikshepa and Avarana—have to be overcome gradually, stage by stage
in amethodical manner. And then suddenly you see the illumination of Atmic knowledge. You will
come face to face with your true nature. You will have this transcendental experience.
The removal of the basic impurities or blemishes can be done by the cultivation of the
opposite positive qualities. What do you do when you want to remove darkness? You do not bring
mops or brooms to sweep it or sacks to collect it. You bring the positive opposite quality light to
remove darkness.
The moment the positive opposite quality comes in, the negative quality vanishes; because
the negative quality has no basis. A negative quality is not an independent entity by itself. Mark this
very very carefully. Negative qualities really have no force. They only imply the absence of
positive qualities. He is a great liar means he has no truth in him. There are no such things as lies but
there is absence of truth in this person. The moment he welcomes truth by firmly asserting “I will
try to become truthful,” he can no longer be called a liar.
Hatred is not a positive quality. There is no such thing as hatred, some dark thing wanting to
jump upon you. It means that there is no love, no kindness. So it only indicates a condition of the
absence of love, and in one who cultivates love and compassion there is no more hatred. The
moment love comes in, hatred vanishes; because the positive is real and the negative is not real.
When the positive quality is cultivated, the negative ceases to be.
So, remember, cultivation of virtues is a fundamental part of self-culture leading to spiritual
evolution and Divine experience. This is the laying of the foundation as it were. If you want to
cultivate a garden from a wild piece of land, the first thing you have to do is to root out all the weeds,
the brambles, the undergrowth and remove all such unnecessary things. Then you have to prepare
the ground by removing all stones and pebbles and then make the soil fertile.
Thus, in this process of spiritual cultivation you must work at getting rid of the trash,
eliminating all that is undivine, unspiritual, transcending the brute and bestial nature such as greed,
hatred, anger, jealousy, selfishness, haughtiness and arrogance. Then you have to grow the flowers
of virtues in the garden of your heart. Then alone you will rise unto a state of godliness.
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.” One should have great deal of zeal in cultivating divine virtues.
Through the cultivation of virtues and removal of vices, the oscillating, tossing and restless nature
of the mind gets thinned out. Through prayer and meditation the veil of ignorance is torn aside. Now


you attain to the state of Reality-consciousness. Your experience is now one of absolute spiritual
bliss and peace. How can you now describe that grand experience of spiritual consciousness or
Divine ecstasy. You will only say, “I am Satchidananda.”