The Three Impurities (Mala)

Kashmir Shaivism explains bondage as a threefold 'impurity' — not moral stain but a set of constraints that wrap the free, infinite consciousness into a small, suffering self. The first and deepest is simply feeling incomplete, a limited individual. From it follows the perception of a world of separate, different things over against oneself. And from that follows getting entangled in action and its consequences, which keeps the cycle turning. Liberation is the loosening of these three, classically presented as an unwinding from the outermost constraint inward, back toward the original fullness.