Atma Bodha - Post 11

VERSE - 5 

अज्ञानकलुषं जीवं ज्ञानाभ्यासाद्विनिर्मलम् ।

कृत्वा ज्ञानं स्वयं नश्येज्जलं कतकरेणुवत् ॥ ५॥

AJNANA KALUSHAM JEEVAM 

JNANA ABHAASAAT VINIRMALAM

KRUTVA JNAANAM SVAYAM 

NASHYET JALAM KATAKA RENUVAT

(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 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 jnana and that from self experience which is aparoksha jnana. 

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 can never remove anything that is neither present nor absent. Ignorance as we analyzed is something that is neither real nor unreal. It is 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.

We shall take up the example of Kataka Nut in the next post.

Continued...