Page 26 - Wisdom Unfurled

complete Ignorance as I call it). The sphere of knowledge (in the popular sense of the term) is only an intermediary stage. Really so far as it is the sphere of knowledge, it is all ignorance in true sense.
Can that which dawns after the veil of ignorance is torn off, be ever expressed as knowledge? certainly not, though one does call it so in the outer sense taking into view the two opposites. Does it cover the sense of knowledge? No: knowledge implies awareness of that which is beyond self. Realisation means merging or oneness with the Absolute. In that case no question of knowledge can ever arise. What then may that be called – knowledgelessness, not-knowingness, Ignorance or whatsoever? In short it must be something like that, though it may well nigh be impossible to express it in words. Complete Ignorance as I have put it, may however be nearest to appropriateness.
One on the Divine path is supposed to be marching from darkness to light. Let darkness be avidya (as it is commonly represented) and light vidya. Sahaj Marg does not have light for its goal. It is but an intermediary stage which we pass through during our march to the Ultimate, which is neither light nor darkness but beyond both. Thus do we start from avidya (ignorance) and pass through vidya (knowledge) on to that which is neither avidya nor vidya but beyond both. What word can denote the exact sense of that which is neither light nor darkness or which is neither avidya nor vidya? Is there any word for that in any vocabulary in the world? None, for sure. Let it therefore be as I say ‘complete Ignorance’, different from its crudest state of preliminary ignorance.
Means: Tarka, Shruti and Anubhava
Generally, philosophers have attempted to reach the innermost core of things through reason (tarka) and not through vision. Reason in its popular sense may be faulty and may fail us, but if a thing is seen through intuitional insight without the unnecessary medium of reason, it will be visible in its original form without error or defect. We should try to understand things when the knots begin to open by themselves.
Guidance sought from books is not of much avail since it is often misleading and sometimes dangerous too. Methods prescribed in books are generally confusing, touching the outer aspect only. One can never become a physician by simply reading the names of the medicines and their properties. It is impossible to come to a thorough understanding of the taste of a mango merely by reading the description about it in books. The proof of the pudding lies in the eating of it, is a well known saying. There seems to be contradiction in Vedas apparently. The six schools of philosophy are the result. Everybody according to his reach says something or the other. The real study is that by which we realise the unchangeable; and that is realised neither