Ignorance has produced everywhere a state of relativity and reciprocal dependence. Birth is inseparably linked with death, congregation with segregation, evolution with involution, attraction with repulsion, the centripetal with the centrifugal force, the spring with the fall, the tide with the ebb, joy with sorrow, God with Satan, Adam with Eve, Buddha with Devadatta, etc., etc., _ad infinitum_. These are necessary conditions of existence; and if existence is an evil, they must be abolished, and with their abolition the very reason of existence is abolished, which means absolute nothingness, an impossibility as long as we exist. The work of ignorance in the world of conditional Suchness is quite innocent, and Buddhists do not recognise any fault in its existence, if not contaminated by confused subjectivity. Those who speak of the curse of existence, or those who conceive Nirvâna to be the abode of non-existence {124} and the happiness of absolute annihilation, are considered by Buddhists to be unable to understand the significance of Ignorance. Is there then no fault to be found with Ignorance? Not in Ignorance itself, but in our defiled attachment to it, that is, when we are ignorant of Ignorance. It is wrong to cling to the dualism of subject and object as final and act accordingly. It is wrong to take the work of ignorance as ultimate and to forget the foundation on which it stands. It is wrong, thinking that the awakening of consciousness reveals the whole world, to ignore the existence of unseen realities. In short, evils quickly follow our steps when we try to realise the conclusions of ignorance without knowing its true relation to Suchness. Egoism is the most fundamental of all errors and evils. When we speak of ignorance as hindering the light of intelligence from penetrating to the bottom of reality, we usually understand the term ignorance not in the philosophical sense of principium individuum, but in the sense of confused subjectivity, which conceives the work of Ignorance as the final reality culminating in egoism. So, we might say that while the principle of Ignorance is philosophically justified, its unenlightened actualisation in our practical life is altogether unwarranted and brings on us a series of dire calamities. CHAPTER VI. THE TATHÂGATA-GARBHA AND THE ÂLAYA-VIJÑÂNA. {125}