Verse 27
ज्ञानवर्जिताऽज्ञानहीनचित् |
ज्ञानमस्ति किं ज्ञातुमन्तरम् || २७ ||
jñānavarjitā'jñānahīnacit
|
jñānamasti kiṁ jñātumantaram || 27 ||
Knowledge abandoned, ignorance abandoned, Consciousness is.
Is there knowledge to know difference?
Which means,
Consciousness
is devoid of the thought or Vritti of ignorance and knowledge also. Is there
any knowledge other than the Self to know the Self?? There is not (The Self is
self-knowing and hence doesn’t require any special knowledge to be known).
Maharshi is
explaining here the inherent nature of the Self which is knowledge or
Consciousness called Chit.
Thought-based
Knowledge & Self-knowledge:
Thought-based
knowledge is secondary; Self-knowledge is primary. Thought-based knowledge is
on a relative plane; whereas Self-knowledge is absolute.
Secular
knowledge is thought-based. That does not mean that it is of no use; it has its
place in governing all our interactions in the world. It brings objects to our
awareness. In fact, we cannot conduct any business in the world without
thought-based knowledge. And until we attain Self-knowledge, it is all we have
in our mind.
In the realm
of thought-knowledge one can say, “I know what I know, and I know what I do not
know.”
Another
aspect of thought-knowledge is that it changes. “What I know" can become
"What I do not know", and vice versa. In other words, knowledge of
objects is also time dependent. It can be forgotten, or it can change with
time. Knowledge can become invalid under new conditions.
Thought-knowledge
has another interesting feature: What we call knowledge today can become
ignorance tomorrow, and the other way, too. As our experience and factual
information changes, so do the thoughts change with regard to a particular object.
A person thought to be a criminal today, could be declared innocent tomorrow
when more facts are unearthed.
The point
being made in the context of this verse is, “What is the worth of knowledge in
such a case? It is better that we don’t give it so much of importance. All that
we learn in books can be forgotten. That is not the knowledge we are after.”
In the case
of Self-knowledge it can never become ignorance again. Its very nature is
knowledge. This is the difference between true knowledge of the Self and
secular knowledge. When we realize the Self, we truly know. It is not something
that can be forgotten. For it is not a thought; it is our very being. Our quest
for knowledge is really a quest for this permanent, unchanging basis of
knowledge. It can never be satisfied with the outer, thought-based knowledge.
SELF LUMINOUS
A person
when inside a dark room doesn’t need any light to know his own existence. He
doesn’t need to ascertain from another person whether 'I exist or not'. This
is what is called self-luminous nature of the Self.
To be
continued…
Love.
