Impurity of Individuality (Āṇava-Mala)

Āṇava-mala is the root impurity — at its deepest the contraction of boundless consciousness into a finite point, a mere 'atom' (aṇu) of a self; and as felt from within, the bare sense of being small, limited, and incomplete. It is the most fundamental of the three, underlying the others: before one even perceives a separate world or acts in it, there is this first shrinking into a finite individual, the original loss of one's own fullness from which all bondage grows.