Page 160 - Complete Works of Dr. KCV Volume 1

our activity, when we do not know how to act properly or adequately to a particular situation. Action done, which is uninformed by knowledge is ignorance. A man is said to be ignorant not because he has not read. He might have read everything; yet he may remain ignorant because he does not know how to use knowledge for a particular situation. Now, that is a kind of ignorance that we shall have to counter. Now, we call a man ignorant when he is not able to have proper knowledge to overcome a situation or meet the situation. So, mere knowledge without practice is meaningless and it cannot apply itself to a situation. So both are, in one sense, ignorant. You can say knowledge is a kind of ignorance, just as ignorant action is a kind of ignorance. Now, we are struggling in modern world to get rid of what is called "learned ignorance". Most of us are learnedly ignorant. I do not think we are ignorantly learned. Now, our Master says, we start with the preliminary ignorance, it is true. And when we try to know the situation what exactly do we do? In order to know a situation we have to get out of the situation and inspect the situation. That is, knowledge involves a divorce or a separation from the object or situation in order to meet it or adequately respond to it and therefore it means, you develop a division between the object and yourself. And so, a knowledge of the situation is always an external study of the situation, not an internal one. So, your knowledge is only limited to a particular purpose, namely, to get food, get clothing, get the amenities of life etc. For this purpose, you get out of the situation in order to inspect it. Therefore, there is a division of the subject and object. And a knowledge is something external to the object which is to be known. Now, this is very limited. Your knowledge, in every case, is limited knowledge. It is a limited knowledge because it is not a knowledge of the thing as it is in itself, but as it is for you to meet a particular situation. All knowledge, therefore, is a limited knowledge. Therefore, we are in difficulties when greater situations arise. As a matter of fact, in science, we can see that every Law is only true within limits. No law is absolutely working beyond particular limits. When they go beyond limits, you find that your laws do not apply. Now this is very important, remember, because knowledge is in fact, by its very nature, limited and finite. Laws are finite and also as we now find, they are probable but never certain. All empirical laws are probables, in greater or lesser amount, (it does not matter), because if it exceeds the limits, you are in error. That is basically wrong and you have to confess that is ignorance. So behind every