Page 100 - Wisdom Unfurled

buoyancy, the techniques of swimming and so on, but may drown when he falls into the water for lack of practical exposure and training. This illustrates the practical dimension of knowledge namely skill in putting into practice the bookish or theoretical knowledge. The above is the mundane idea about ignorance and knowledge.
We will now see what the Master has to say about vidya and avidya; the two are like the two poles of a magnet, up to a certain extent it is termed as ignorance after that it turns into knowledge. Avidya has no existence without vidya and vice versa. That means that when the veil is torn both of them are gone. Avidya comprises the entire sphere included in both vidya and avidya. That is the state of Tam which is beyond both. It is in true sense the state of realization - where is neither Avidya nor Vidya. What is it there then? Neither of the two - a state of perfect latency, not-knowingness, nor complete knowledge-less-ness which may be roughly denoted as the state of ignorance, just as it is in the state of infancy. It will be appropriate here to quote Revered. K.C.Varadachari, ‘‘Not until you become a child shall you enter into the kingdom of heaven’ said Jesus. I would only add that ‘not until you enter into the kingdom of God will you become a child’’ (KCV CW V1 p 201).
Ignorance is in fact the highest pitch of knowledge according to the Master, meaning that we start from the level of crude ignorance and finally end in a state of higher ignorance, the sphere of knowledge, so called in the outer sense taking into view the two opposites, being only an intermediate state; Master says He does not have any word to describe the state and chooses to term it as Complete Ignorance. As Revered. K.C.Varadachari puts it, this will be a ‘shocking phrase’ to all the professed intellectuals and scholars who are wedded to knowledge. We often find the Upanishadic declarations to the effect, ‘one who knows thus knows or one who knows the real Self knows all’ causing lot of confusions in the minds of the seekers regarding the true meaning and implications of such knowledge. This leads to wrong and unfounded expectations in their hearts of being conferred the state of omniscience on attaining to the state of realization as they tend to equate the two states. A proper understanding of Revered. Master’s teachings through prayerful meditations and imperiencing the actual condition of ‘void or nothingness’ under the watchful eye of a competent guide are both required for the aspirant to come out of the illusory notions of knowledge.
The Master asks whether one can call that which dawns after the veil of ignorance is torn as knowledge and answers that knowledge implies awareness of that which is beyond self and realization means merging or oneness with the Absolute. In the case of realization then the question of knowledge can never arise as ‘you will have to cease to be both a subject and