Aphorism #1: In Aphorism #49 of Chapter One I discussed the three major obstacles to God Realization. The root of these three obstacles is egoism. Egoism is a state of mental bondage and limitation where we identify ourselves completely with the body-mind construct.

Aphorism #2: The tamasic obstacle to spiritual Insight is experienced as a need for security, a requirement for the continuation of our imagined boundaries of existence.

Aphorism #3: The rajasic obstacle to spiritual Insight is experienced as a need for power, a requirement for the continued expansion of our territory of influence.

Commentary: Note how the rajasic obstacle is an outgrowth of the tamasic one. Once we experience ourselves as limited objects, then we not only want to hold onto these boundaries; we also want to expand them. We require a constant sense of growth or "becoming" -- to coin the phrase of J.R. Krishnamurti.

Aphorism #4: The sattwic obstacle to spiritual Insight is experienced as a need for deeper and deeper knowledge for the sake of security and power.

Commentary: Sattwic impulses are never totally divorced from rajasic and tamasic ones even though we fool ourselves into believing that this is the case. However, sattwic impulses do eventually lead us to the transcendence of the ego. They are the final step in the elimination of the small self.

Aphorism #5: These three obstacles imply a root obstacle: the sense of self or egoism.

Aphorism #6: This last obstacle can only be removed through Knowledge and never through any action. All sense of doership only enhances the illusion of an independent self.

Aphorism #7: The idea of liberation is as much an illusion as is the idea of bondage, because both ideas wrongly assume the existence of an entity needing release. An entity is a subject (in bondage) that must acquire an object (liberation) through effort (action). Yet, these very conceptions constitute the ignorance that keeps us from realizing Ultimate knowledge.

Commentary: This is the exact point that Shankara hammered on time an time again: enlightenment is the result of Knowledge and not action. He also emphasized a related point: ultimately, the realization of this liberating Knowledge is the result of grace and not effort, since the pursuit of all conventional knowledge is also a form of action. Knowledge by Identity does not imply a knower separate from the object of knowledge, nor any process of knowing.