DESCRIPTION OF IGNORANCE.
Argument. Delusion the cause of error.
Ráma said:—Sir, I feel your speech to be as cooling and shining as the
water of the milky sea; it is as deep and copious as the vast ocean:—
2. I am sometimes darkened and enlightened at others, by the variety of
your discourses, as a rainy day is now obscured by the cloud, and again
shines forth brightly with sunshine.
3. I understand Brahma as infinite and inconceivable, and the life and
light of all that exists. I know that light never sets; but tell me,
how they attribute many qualities that are foreign to his nature.
4. Vasishtha replied:—The wording and meaning of my lectures to you,
are all used in their right and ordinary sense, they are neither
insignificant or meaningless, equivocal or ambiguous, or contradictory
of one with another.
5. You will understand the proper import of my phraseology, when the
eyesight of your understanding becomes clearer, and when the light of
reason will rise in your mind.
6. Do not mistake the meanings of my words, or the phraseology I have
used all along, in order to explain the subject of my lectures, and
purport of the sástras, for your acquaintance with them.
7. When you will come to know the clear Truth of Brahma, you will know
more regarding the distinctions of significant words, and their
significations and significates.
8. The distinctive verbal signs are invented for the communication of
our thoughts, in conveying our instructions to others, and for our
knowledge of the purport of the sástras.
9. Words and their meanings, phrases and their constructions, are used
for the instruction of others; they are applied to the use of the
ignorant, and never apply to those who are acquainted with truth (by
their intention).
10. There is no attribute, nor imputation, that bears any relation with
the free and unsullied soul. It is the dispassionate spirit of the
supreme Brahma, and the same is the soul of the existent world.
11. This subject will again be fully discussed and dilated upon with
various arguments, on the occasion of our arriving to the conclusion of
this subject (in the book of Nirvána).
12. I have said so far about verbiology at present, because it is
impossible to penetrate into the deep darkness of ignorance, without
the means of verbiage (flux de mots).
13. As conscious ignorance offers herself a willing sacrifice to the
shrine of knowledge, she bids her adversary—the destroyer of error, to
take possession of her seat in the bosom of man. (Here is a double
entendre of the word _avidyá_, the former meaning ignorance as well as
a concubine, and the latter signifying the wife and knowledge; hence it
implies the advance of knowledge upon disappearance of her rival
ignorance).
14. As one weapon is foiled by another, and one dirt is removed by the
other (_cow dung_ and ashes), and as one poison is destroyed by
another, and also as one foe is driven out by another enemy (_similes
curantur_).
15. So Ráma, the mutual destruction of errors, brings joy to the soul.
It is hard however to detect the error; but no sooner it is found out
than it is put to destruction. It means the confutation of false
doctrines by one another.
16. Ignorance obscures our perspicacity, and presents the false and
gross world before us. We all view this wonderful universe, but know
not what and how it is.
17. Unobserved it rushes to our view, but being examined with
attention, it flies upon keen observation. We know it is a phantasm,
and yet find it appearing with its dimensions and figures before us.
18. O the wonderful enchantment, which has spread out this world, and
made the unreality to appear as a sober reality, to the knowledge of
every one of us.
19. This earth is a distinct wide extended superfices, resting on the
indistinct surface of an unknown substratum. He is the best of beings
that has stretched this enchantment.
20. When you are enlightened with the thought, that all this is
inexistent in reality; you will then become the knower of the knowable
(God), and understand the import of my lectures.
21. So long as you are not awakened to true knowledge, rely upon my
words, and know this immensity as the creature of the incorrigible and
immovable ignorance.
22. All this immensity, that appears to sight, is but the picture of
your mistaken thought; it is all unsubstantial, and a mere
manifestation of your deluded mind only.
23. He is entitled to liberation, whose mind is certain of the reality
of Brahma; and knows the moving and unmoving figures without, as the
thoughts of the mind presented to the sight.
24. The whole scale of the earth, is as a net of birds to catch the
fleeting mind; it is as false as a landscape in the dream; which
represents the unreal as real ones to the mind.
25. He who looks upon the world without his attachment to it, is never
subject to grief or sorrow on any account. And he who thinks all these
forms as formless, sees the formless spirit.
26. The forms of the formless spirit, is the formation of ignorance,
and when the blemishes of passions and mutations, do not even belong to
great souls, how can these attributes relate to the greatest God.
27. The attributes given to the Supreme Spirit, are as dust thrown upon
the surface of limpid water; it is our thoughts only that attribute
these qualities to the inconceivable One, as we attribute certain
meanings to words (that bear no relation to them).
<28.> It is usage that establishes the meanings of words, which continue
to be inseparably joined with them; and it is usage that determines
their use in the sástras.
29. As the cloth cannot be thought of without its thread, so the soul
is unintelligible without the medium of words giving its true
definition.
30. It is possible to gain the knowledge of the soul from the sástras,
without one’s self-consciousness of it; as it is possible to get over
the sea of ignorance, by means of spiritual knowledge.
31. Ráma! it is impossible to arrive at the state of what is called
imperishable life and bliss, when the soul is any how polluted by the
blemishes of ignorance.
32. The existence of the world verily depends on the existence of the
Supreme; know this, and do not question how and whence it came to exist.
33. Let it be for thee to think only how thou shalt get rid of this
unreality; for it is upon the disappearance of the unreality, that thou
canst know the real truth.
34. Leave off thinking whence is all this, how it is and how it is
destroyed at last; believe it to be really nothing, but only appearing
without being actually seen.
35. How can one know, how the unreality appears as reality by his
mistake of it, when the error of reality, in the unreal, has taken a
firm footing in his mind?
36. Try your best to destroy this prejudice of yours, and then you will
know the truth. And verily such men are the greatest heroes and most
learned in the world, who are freed from prejudices.
37. Strive to destroy your baneful ignorance, or it is sure to
overpower on thee as upon the rest of mankind.
38. Take care, lest it should enthral thee to the pain of thy repeated
transmigrations, and know ignorance to be the root of all evils and
companion of every vice. It creates a man’s interest in what proves his
peril.
39. Avoid quickly this false view, the baneful cause of your fears and
sorrows, and of your diseases and dangers; and the germ of errors in
the mind; and thereby ford over this perilous ocean of the world.