For him who has been stung by the cobra of ignorance, the only remedy is the knowledge of Brahman. Of what use are the Vedas and the scriptures, mantras and medicines to such a victim of poison? (61)
The Supreme, poisoned, as it were, by self-forgetfulness has come to suffer the burning agony of limitations and sorrows. It has forgotten its divine nature and identifying with the matter envelopments, its sobs at its mortality, its sorrows, its imperfections.
To one who has realized these and has come to feel a choking impatience to be relieved from the tyranny of pain, nothing short of Self-rediscovery can be satisfying. A victim of the snakebite of ignorance can be relieved of his painful delirium only by Self-realization. Only then, can he live as the Spirit, the Reality in everything and being.
It is natural that when a person realizes that he has been bitten by a cobra, he will have none of the ordinary prejudices of faith, creed, position, status, time, or place; any help that reaches him from any quarter, offered in any attitude will be most welcome. In that moment of dire sorrow, in the magnitude of his tragedy, he realizes the urgency of the situation, and his only demand is for some antidote to the poison, which can restore him to natural health and vitality.
Why does Sankara use the word medicine? Because he has compared ajnana into sarpa and samsara into a poison and for the poison there has to be an anti- venom; brahma jnana anti-venom has to be injected for the samsara poison and without this brahma jnana, you do anything in your life; samsara will continue.
Therefore, he says: without this knowledge, kimu Vedai; what is the use of studying any amount of Vedas; chanting the Vedas; or karma Kanda of the Vedas; or Upasana Kanda; jnana Kanda should not be included here. What is the use of any amount of karma Kanda; any amount of Upasana Kanda itself.
kimu sastraicha; what is the use of all the other sastra. Here sastra does not include Vedanta sastra. Sastra means Vedanta anya sastra, tarka, Mimamsa, vyakarana Satriaihi kimu; what prayojanam is there.
kimu mantraihi; what is the use of any learning of mantra and mantra avr̥ttiḥ; I have taken two mantras, I have three mantras, and if you take mantras from every acharya and every saint; and there afterwards complain that they are of no use to you. And you are not able to continue also; not able to drop also.
No sooner a seeker realizes that he has been bitten by ignorance, the most dangerous of all serpents in the wild jungles of uncultured and uncultivated hearts, then he will take the best from the sastras and will try to imbibe immediately the specific cure for ignorance, the knowledge of the Real.
To such a one, of what avail then are the slower though more comfortable means of study of the Vedas and sastras, repetition of mantras and dizzy philosophical arguments?
Exactly the same analogy of being bitten by snake of samsara is referred in a book “Advaita bodha Deepika” , written by a disciple of Sri Ramana where, question is asked by a disciple and answer is given by Sri Ramana
Disciple: Bitten by the cruel serpent of painful samsara, I am dazed and I suffer. Master, pray save me from this burning hell and kindly tell me how I can be free.
Maharishi.: Well said, my Son! You are intelligent and well disciplined. There is no need to prove your competence to be a disciple. Your words clearly show that you are fit. Now look here, my child!
In the Supreme Self of Being-Knowledge-Bliss who can be the transmigrating being? How can this samsara be? What could have given rise to it? And how and whence can it arise itself? Being the non- dual Reality, how can you be deluded? With nothing separate in deep sleep, not having changed in any manner, and having slept soundly and peacefully, a fool on waking shouts out "Alas, I am lost!" How can you, the changeless, formless, Supreme, Blissful Self shout forth "I transmigrate — I am miserable!" and so on? Truly there is neither birth nor death; no one to be born or to die; nothing of the kind!
D.: What does exist then?
M.: There exists only the beginning less, endless, non-dual, never bound, ever free, pure, aware, single, Supreme, Bliss Knowledge.
Through the above answer, Ramana reveals the supreme truth that as long as one is in samsara, one perceives samsara and believes samasara as real, he suffers, as if bitten by snake of samsara and runs hither and thither for relief from the pain caused due to the biting by the snake of samsara.
Once he attains self realization which is the only cure to the self imposed pain caused due to samsara, then he realizes that there was never this samsara and hence, the snake (of samsara) never existed to bite him ( cause him suffering). For the SELF that he always is, which is explained by Ramana thus:- “There exists only the beginning less, endless, non-dual, never bound, ever free, pure, aware, single, Supreme, Bliss Knowledge.”, there is no ignorance and therefore, there is no samsara and there can never be any pain caused due to the ignorance that samsara is real!!
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