Ignorance
Ignorance of our real nature is the source of the other four, whether they be dormant, weak, suspended, or fully active.
What this means is that all the causes of suffering are contained within the first cause of not knowing the true nature of reality. When you remember your true identity as pure spirit:
Your ego no longer dominates your awareness, giving and taking offense, or seeking the approval of others.
You let go of your attachments, understanding that in an impermanent material universe everything has a beginning, a middle, and end.
You no longer avoid those things you fear, knowing that those things are impermanent and illusory, and cannot cause harm to your true self.
You are liberated from your fear of death in the realization that death is merely a transition between one expression of your spirit and another, and that your life is like a flash of lightning across the summer sky, a parenthesis in eternity.
Transcend Suffering Through Meditation: To transcend the first Klesha – The subtle causes of suffering are destroyed when the mind merges back into the unmanifest. The gross effects of suffering are discarded through meditation.
Meditation is the key that unlocks the prison of suffering by returning you to the state of knowledge of who you are. You plug back into the field of pure consciousness and, in doing so, you lift the veil of egoism, eliminate the need for attachment and aversion, and dispel the fear of your own mortality. Meditation can also create the space, or witnessing awareness, that allows you to notice the Kleshas as they arise in your awareness. Seeing the Kleshas for the illusions they are, you can be liberated from their control.
