Verse 16
Jnaanena tu tad ajnaanam
Yeshaam naashitam aatmanah;
Teshaam aadityavaj jnaanam
Prakaashayati tatparam.
But, to those whose ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of the Self,
like the sun, knowledge reveals the Supreme (Brahman).
Here Lord Krishna is emphasizing that persons
whose spiritual knowledge has become awakened do not become deluded in the
material existence. They are able to discriminate between the mundane material
knowledge and the divine spiritual knowledge by knowledge of the atman or soul
and knowledge of the Supreme. This spiritual knowledge destroys all ignorance
and manifests illumination of the Supreme Lord within the etheric heart of a
human being just as the sun destroying darkness and illuminates all things.
Let us resort to Sri Chinmaya’s commentary
for this profound declaration by Sri Krishna in this verse.
Acharya writes,
“In the case of finite mortals, sighing and
sobbing in ignorance, the Self is screened off from them by lifeless walls of
nescience (Avidya). The man of realization is one in whom Knowledge has lifted
this veil of ignorance.
Darkness is removed by Light not by degrees
but instantaneously --- however old the darkness may be and however thick its
density. Similarly, in one who has Knowledge (Jnana) of the Self, the
beginningless ignorance is lifted and within a lightning flash, his ignorance
ends.
Ignorance creates the ego-centric concept and
the ego thrives in the body, mind and intellect. With the end of ignorance, the
ego too ends.”
In Ramayana, a verse states:
Rākāpati ṣhoṛasa uahiṅ
Tārāgana samudāi
Sakala girinha dava lāia
Binu rabi rāti na jāi
“Despite the combined light of the full moon and all the visible stars
in a cloudless sky, the night does not go. But the moment the sun rises,
the night makes a hasty exit.”
The light of the sun is such that the
darkness cannot remain before it. The light of God’s knowledge has a
similar effect in dispelling the darkness of ignorance.
Chinmaya writes on this illumination in the
context of today's verse thus:
“When we reconsider this statement, it is not
very difficult for us to understand that the sun cannot be covered by a tiny
bit of a cloud.
Also, the region of the cloud is far removed
from the centre of the Universe where the sun, in its infinite glory, revels as
the one-without-a-second. The minute humans observing from the surface of the
globe with their tiny eyes, experience that the glorious orb of the sun is
being veiled because of a wisp of cloud. Even a mighty mountain can be veiled
from our vision if we put our tiny little finger very near our eyes!
Similarly, the ego (Jiva) looking up to the
Atman finds that ignorance is enveloping the Infinite. This ignorance is not in
Truth, just as the clouds are never in the sun. The finite ignorance is
certainly a limited factor compared with the infinitude of Reality.
And yet, the mist of Self forgetfulness that
hangs in the chambers of the heart gives the ego the false notion that the
Spiritual Reality is enveloped by ignorance. When this ignorance is removed,
the Self becomes manifest, just as when the cloud has moved away, the sun
becomes manifest.
To see the sun, we need no other light; to
experience the Self we need no other experience. The Self IS Awareness. It
is Consciousness.”
Dear All,
The beauty is that having been created as pure
divine being, within us is the Sun, the illumination or the Knowledge - CHIT.
We are the chit, the sat-chit-ananda
Swarupas.
Yet, over several births, we ourselves
have clouded the sun that we are, with the cloud of our ignorance.
Incarnations come and teach us, our Acharya
teach us, the entire shrutis (Upanishads) teach us that “we are the light”.
However, since the clouding of our real
SELF is also due to our own karmas, we only have to take efforts, engage in
serious spiritual sadhana to uncloud our clouded ego / ignorance (avidya)
so that we shine brilliantly as the eternal light within us.
Lord does help us when we sincerely pray to
Him to help us in our sadhana and hence we invoke His guidance by
singing,
“Sathya Jyothi Jalao,
Prema Jyothi Jalao,
Ananda Jyothi Jalao”
Love.
