Sloka - 5 and 6
Hari OM,
Thanking Lord for the beautiful explanations that helped us to understand the previous sloka more clearly, let us learn the next sloka today.
SLOKA 5:
aGYaanakalushhaM jiivaM GYaanaabhyaasaadvinir malam.h .
kR^itvaa GYaanaM svayaM nashyeJNjalaM katakareNuvat.h .. 5..
Pada artha:
Ajnaanakalusham: stained by ignorance
Jeevam: jeevatman(the self that has been contaminated by ignorance)
Jnaanabhasaat: from constant practice of knowledge
Vinirmalam: pure
Krutva: having made
Jnaanam: knowledge
Swayam: itself
Nashyet: disappears
Jalam: water
Kataka renuvat: as the powder of kataka
Constant practice of knowledge purifies the Self (‘Jivatman’), stained by ignorance and then disappears itself – as the powder of the ‘Kataka-nut’ settles down after it has cleansed the muddy water.
In the previous slokas we learnt that it is only knowledge that can remove the ignorance and the ever present Atman is untainted by ignorance just as the clouds covering the Sun. In this sloka, Acharya is again explaining the reality of the non dual Brahman by explaining about the nature of the knowledge that removes the ignorance. A student may doubt that after disappearance of ignorance the knowledge may remain and hence duality would always remain, thus leading to the wrong conclusion that removal of ignorance cannot lead to the non dual blissful Atman.
Let us analyze the ignorance and the knowledge a bit to understand Acharya’s answer to this doubt. Ignorance is nothing but forgetting one’s own nature of Self. It can be neither termed as real or unreal and can never be proved. Knowledge can be termed as that which is got from the scriptures which is the paroksha jnaana and that from self experience which is aparoksha jnaana. These are again but modifications of mind or experiences only and hence limited only to the realm of the empirical level. Thus this knowledge can also be called as illusory only.
It is this knowledge that negates the illusory ignorance. But the Self knowledge which is but the consciousness, i.e. the Self is ever present just as the sun behind the clouds and hence is unaffected by this illusory and illusory knowledge.
The ignorance can never be ‘removed’ as it is not that which is newly acquired to be removed, also that which is removed can be got again. We cab never remove anything that is neither present nor absent. Ignorance as we analyzed is something that is neither real nor unreal. It just a mere illusion. Just like the illusion of the snake in the rope or the water in the desert. Like the snake in the rope that can never be removed as it never existed in the first place, by knowledge, this ignorance is not ‘removed’ but only negated.
Acharya here explains that like the powder of the Kataka nut that is used to cleanse the water, knowledge that removes ignorance also disappears once the ignorance is negated. When the kataka nut powder is put into the muddy water, along with the dirt, the nut powder also settles down and thus, the nut and the dirt are both eliminated from the water leaving behind pure water alone. Similarly, the illusory knowledge after negating the illusory ignorance vanishes leaving behind the non dual eternal Self knowledge which is but the absolute consciousness or Atman alone.
Thus it is only the illusory knowledge in the form of scriptures, words of guru, experience etc. that negates the illusory ignorance, and after negation, there is neither this knowledge nor the ignorance but only the real nature of Self which is that of non dual existence-consciousness-bliss shines forth like the Sun unhindered by clouds.
To clearly establish the non duality of the Self and the illusory nature of the world, Acharya explains further in the next verse through another beautiful example, which we shall take up next.
SLOKA 6:
saMsaaraH svapnatulyo hi raagadveshhaadisaN^.hkulaH .
svakaale satyavad.hbhaati prabodhe satyasad.hbhavet.h .. 6..
Pada artha:
Samsaara: the world
Swapna tulyaha: like a dream
Hi: verily
Raga dweshaadi sankulaha: full of attachments, aversions etc.
Swakaale : in its duration
Satyavat: to be real
Bhaati: appears
Prabodhe sati: when awake
Asat: unreal
Bhavet: appears
The world which is full of attachments, aversions, etc., is like a dream. It appears to be real, as long as it continues but appears to be unreal when one is awake (i.e., when true wisdom dawns).
It is very hard for a seeker to get conviction that the world so clearly perceived is unreal and the only reality is the non dual Atman. Hence the compassionate Acharya in this verse is explaining the relevance of the world by the analogy of the dream.
The world that we perceive is felt through our senses and is full of attachments and aversions. These are only due to ignorance. Hence Achaya here mentions that for an ignorant person who perceives duality, the world full of likes and dislikes appears to be real. But this world is just like a dream, and is valid only till one is in ignorance. Acharya explains this through a very beautiful example of dream.
When a person is dreaming, then the dream world itself is mistaken as real, in that world one may become a king and be happy or lose everything or even die and become sad or afraid. Till the dream exists, i.e. till one is in the dream state, all this may appear as real but once one wakes up from that state, the dream is known to be nothing but as an illusion. It is unreal because it is impermanent and never exists forever. Similarly, the world we perceive through our senses is unreal. The ever changing world can never be real and is an illusion only. It is just like an prolonged dream created only by our mind.
Till one is in ignorance, the world with all its dualities is perceived as real, and one gets deluded by bonding, hatred etc. of different objects of the world. Just as in the dream world, one may feel happy and proud about ones wealth or sad thinking about all miseries. All these arise only due to ignorance and once the knowledge of the Self dawns, then this world is known only as an illusion, just like the dream world that never existed.
Till one is dreaming, we cannot say know the dream world is unreal. Similarly, the world perceived in the waking state can be realized as unreal only after the ignorance that creates it is completely negated.
Thus Acharya here is explaining that world appears to be real only as long as one is ignorant about the nature of Self. A seeker must hence constantly remember that the world that is perceived and appears to be real is only an illusion created by mind and must not get affected by all its happenings. Just as the dream world, it will be known as unreal once one ‘wakes up’ from this state of ignorance.
Acharya in the next verse explains more about this and as to how long does the illusory world appear to be real.
Hari OM
With regards,
Mallika R
What you have is God's gift to you and what you do with what you have is your gift to God
Thanking Lord for the beautiful explanations that helped us to understand the previous sloka more clearly, let us learn the next sloka today.
SLOKA 5:
aGYaanakalushhaM jiivaM GYaanaabhyaasaadvinir malam.h .
kR^itvaa GYaanaM svayaM nashyeJNjalaM katakareNuvat.h .. 5..
Pada artha:
Ajnaanakalusham: stained by ignorance
Jeevam: jeevatman(the self that has been contaminated by ignorance)
Jnaanabhasaat: from constant practice of knowledge
Vinirmalam: pure
Krutva: having made
Jnaanam: knowledge
Swayam: itself
Nashyet: disappears
Jalam: water
Kataka renuvat: as the powder of kataka
Constant practice of knowledge purifies the Self (‘Jivatman’), stained by ignorance and then disappears itself – as the powder of the ‘Kataka-nut’ settles down after it has cleansed the muddy water.
In the previous slokas we learnt that it is only knowledge that can remove the ignorance and the ever present Atman is untainted by ignorance just as the clouds covering the Sun. In this sloka, Acharya is again explaining the reality of the non dual Brahman by explaining about the nature of the knowledge that removes the ignorance. A student may doubt that after disappearance of ignorance the knowledge may remain and hence duality would always remain, thus leading to the wrong conclusion that removal of ignorance cannot lead to the non dual blissful Atman.
Let us analyze the ignorance and the knowledge a bit to understand Acharya’s answer to this doubt. Ignorance is nothing but forgetting one’s own nature of Self. It can be neither termed as real or unreal and can never be proved. Knowledge can be termed as that which is got from the scriptures which is the paroksha jnaana and that from self experience which is aparoksha jnaana. These are again but modifications of mind or experiences only and hence limited only to the realm of the empirical level. Thus this knowledge can also be called as illusory only.
It is this knowledge that negates the illusory ignorance. But the Self knowledge which is but the consciousness, i.e. the Self is ever present just as the sun behind the clouds and hence is unaffected by this illusory and illusory knowledge.
The ignorance can never be ‘removed’ as it is not that which is newly acquired to be removed, also that which is removed can be got again. We cab never remove anything that is neither present nor absent. Ignorance as we analyzed is something that is neither real nor unreal. It just a mere illusion. Just like the illusion of the snake in the rope or the water in the desert. Like the snake in the rope that can never be removed as it never existed in the first place, by knowledge, this ignorance is not ‘removed’ but only negated.
Acharya here explains that like the powder of the Kataka nut that is used to cleanse the water, knowledge that removes ignorance also disappears once the ignorance is negated. When the kataka nut powder is put into the muddy water, along with the dirt, the nut powder also settles down and thus, the nut and the dirt are both eliminated from the water leaving behind pure water alone. Similarly, the illusory knowledge after negating the illusory ignorance vanishes leaving behind the non dual eternal Self knowledge which is but the absolute consciousness or Atman alone.
Thus it is only the illusory knowledge in the form of scriptures, words of guru, experience etc. that negates the illusory ignorance, and after negation, there is neither this knowledge nor the ignorance but only the real nature of Self which is that of non dual existence-consciousness-bliss shines forth like the Sun unhindered by clouds.
To clearly establish the non duality of the Self and the illusory nature of the world, Acharya explains further in the next verse through another beautiful example, which we shall take up next.
SLOKA 6:
saMsaaraH svapnatulyo hi raagadveshhaadisaN^.hkulaH .
svakaale satyavad.hbhaati prabodhe satyasad.hbhavet.h .. 6..
Pada artha:
Samsaara: the world
Swapna tulyaha: like a dream
Hi: verily
Raga dweshaadi sankulaha: full of attachments, aversions etc.
Swakaale : in its duration
Satyavat: to be real
Bhaati: appears
Prabodhe sati: when awake
Asat: unreal
Bhavet: appears
The world which is full of attachments, aversions, etc., is like a dream. It appears to be real, as long as it continues but appears to be unreal when one is awake (i.e., when true wisdom dawns).
It is very hard for a seeker to get conviction that the world so clearly perceived is unreal and the only reality is the non dual Atman. Hence the compassionate Acharya in this verse is explaining the relevance of the world by the analogy of the dream.
The world that we perceive is felt through our senses and is full of attachments and aversions. These are only due to ignorance. Hence Achaya here mentions that for an ignorant person who perceives duality, the world full of likes and dislikes appears to be real. But this world is just like a dream, and is valid only till one is in ignorance. Acharya explains this through a very beautiful example of dream.
When a person is dreaming, then the dream world itself is mistaken as real, in that world one may become a king and be happy or lose everything or even die and become sad or afraid. Till the dream exists, i.e. till one is in the dream state, all this may appear as real but once one wakes up from that state, the dream is known to be nothing but as an illusion. It is unreal because it is impermanent and never exists forever. Similarly, the world we perceive through our senses is unreal. The ever changing world can never be real and is an illusion only. It is just like an prolonged dream created only by our mind.
Till one is in ignorance, the world with all its dualities is perceived as real, and one gets deluded by bonding, hatred etc. of different objects of the world. Just as in the dream world, one may feel happy and proud about ones wealth or sad thinking about all miseries. All these arise only due to ignorance and once the knowledge of the Self dawns, then this world is known only as an illusion, just like the dream world that never existed.
Till one is dreaming, we cannot say know the dream world is unreal. Similarly, the world perceived in the waking state can be realized as unreal only after the ignorance that creates it is completely negated.
Thus Acharya here is explaining that world appears to be real only as long as one is ignorant about the nature of Self. A seeker must hence constantly remember that the world that is perceived and appears to be real is only an illusion created by mind and must not get affected by all its happenings. Just as the dream world, it will be known as unreal once one ‘wakes up’ from this state of ignorance.
Acharya in the next verse explains more about this and as to how long does the illusory world appear to be real.
Hari OM
With regards,
Mallika R
What you have is God's gift to you and what you do with what you have is your gift to God
posted by vedanta | 8:02 PM
1 Comments:
HARI AUM
Prostrations to all.
It might be good to remember that the knowledge achieved from the scriptures is "illusory" only after ignorance vanishes -- ONLY AFTER IGNORANCE VANISHES......
As long as ignorance is there, knowledge is essential and required too. Thus a person shouldn't do vitandaa vaada to say that since knowledge also is illusory, it is not required. In such a case, there would be no need of thirst for realization or thirst for bliss of the Self.
The above point is very important because it is essential for the seeker to seek knowledge from the scriptures and Guru until ignorance is known to be non-existent. It is only when ignorance is known to be non-existent that knowledge also ceases to exist & becomes illusory.
In technical Vivarana school language, the knowledge got from scriptures is called VRITTI JNAANA as it is a modification of the mind. This vritti jnaana is used to remove VRITTI AJNAANA or ignorance which is also a modification of the mind. When both negate each other, what remains is SVAROOPA JNAANA or Consciousness alone.
What Sankara is indirectly emphasizing here is that even as the king who thought himself to be beggar & later realized himself to be a prince, the lion which considered it as a sheep etc. --- we are already the Self only & hence no "gaining" of Self is required. All efforts are to "remove" AJNAANA. The word "removal" is valid as long as IGNORANCE is considered as REAL or existing (unlike what Mallika has said below -- though sureshwara and madhusudana saraswathi support Mallika's view point) but ignorance is negated when knowledge dawns that there is no ignorance at all.
When "removal" is mentioned, it is removal of seemingly existent AJNAANA -- when "negation" is used, it is knowing AJNAANA to be non-existent -- that's the small (:-)) difference between both....... Being students of Vedanta, usage of "removal" is not appropriate as it tends to give "existence" even if it is temporary to AJNAANA whereas "negation" clearly emphasizes that AJNAANA is not at all there but just seems to be there.
Vedantic sravana, manana, nidhidhyaasana is thus for "removing" or "negating" AJNAANA and not to gain JNAANA of the Self as the Self is already present & we are already THAT. This is what Sankara puts in the Vivarana pattern in the below sloka.
Prostrations to all.
HARI AUM
Thanks
Hariram
Let a moment not pass by without remembering God
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