Introduction

Any reader who has begun a study of Advaita will know that reality is non-dual, that who-they-really-are is Brahman or Consciousness. The seeker’s problem is that, although they acknowledge this as the ‘end point’, they do not yet really believe it. The purpose of the teaching of Advaita is to bring them to this realization – an ‘event’ in the mind which is called ‘enlightenment’.

It might seem self-evident that gaining this Self-knowledge is the same as ‘removing the ignorance’ which presently prevents that realization. But by changing the phrasing in this way, it is perhaps not surprising that some (both seekers and teachers) have then started to consider ‘ignorance’ to be an actually existent entity that ‘obscures’ the truth. It is seen to be analogous to the way in which darkness prevents us from seeing objects in a cave, for example. And there is a tendency for people to believe that darkness is a real entity also.

This way of looking at things is very common and has led post-Śaṅkara authors to pursue endless, esoteric arguments which are virtually incomprehensible to the non-academic mind (e.g. me!) and (as far as I can tell) have entirely failed to reach a consensus. I have addressed some of these issues in my book ‘Confusions in Advaita Vedanta: Ignorance and its Removal’ (it should be available from Amazon in 2025). Those discussions examine some of these aspects, although aiming to do so in a readable and understandable manner.

I will attempt to provide a much simpler account in the book I am now writing, which is a companion to the ‘Finding a Teacher’ book due out in the first half of 2025. It will be called ‘Mining for the Truth in Modern Advaita’ (unless I can think of something better). The essence of this post will be included in that book, looking specifically at ‘darkness’ as a metaphor for ‘ignorance’. It will be in 6 parts.

I am convinced that the essential problem is our use of language. It is natural for man to introduce a word to speak of the ‘absence of light’ and equally natural to use a new word to refer to the ‘lack of knowledge’. The trouble is that, over time, people become deluded into thinking that the words coined for convenience actually refer to something real. The tendency of knowledgeable Advaitins to read post-Śaṅkara authors, and to use transliterated Sanskrit, or even Devanagari, in their discussions merely compounds the problem! But it is the height of irony that the introduction of a metaphor results in our arguing about and trying to understand the metaphor instead of the actual teaching that it represents!

The topic of ‘Ignorance’ is one that is frequently discussed on Google’s ‘Advaitin’ list. I do not usually join in since there is so much ‘academic’ material, using advanced Indian logic and a lot of Sanskrit. (Recently, some members have posted only Devanagari script – both subject heading and content! Presumably, they want to minimize the number of participants, and potential objectors! Or maybe they are just being vainglorious…) In a recent discussion, the darkness metaphor was introduced and I interceded with a post sarcastically titled ‘A Kilogram of Darkness’, documenting an interesting discussion that I had with ChatGPT on the subject. Interested readers can search for this title on the Google list. The discussion took place from around end August to mid-September 2024.

Topic of Discussion

Very simply, the idea is that ignorance is a really existent entity that actually prevents us from realizing the truth (Self-knowledge). This is said to be similar to the way in which darkness is a really existent entity that obscures the light. My understanding is that these are just words that we use. It is lack of light that prevents us from seeing inside the cave. It is lack of knowledge that prevents us from realizing the truth of Advaita. A torch remedies the former; mental preparation and a qualified guru remedy the latter. As I put it in my post to Advaitin:

‘Darkness’ is the word that we use for ‘lack of light’. Switching on a torch does not ‘remove’ darkness; it introduces light. If we keep bumping into things and hurting ourselves, what is needed is a torch (to remedy the lack of adequate light) or spectacles (to remedy the lack of good eyesight). Suppose that someone enters the cave, without a torch, and suffers an injury. The reason for this is that he tripped over a rock, which he was unable to see. It is clearly true that he couldn’t see because there was no light in the cave, but darkness was not the ‘cause’ of his injury. The cause was the rock which lay in his path. With a good torch, he would have been able to see and avoid it.

An objector to this explanation went on to state that the existence of darkness could be proven by inference, and one could treat it as though the darkness is ‘created’ when we switch off the torch. His claim was that we cannot cite language usage to contradict a logical proof. And he proceeded to use symbolic logic, and the often tortuous arguments of post-Śaṅkara authors such as Vimuktātman and Maṇḍana Miśra, along with relevant Sanskrit terminology, to illustrate how my simplistic reasoning was unacceptable. Needless to say, I did not follow any of this and commented that: “To my mind, this is a topic that can be discussed at a level that everyone can follow, because it relates to everyday experience and the language that we all use.”

Sources

As already noted, most of the material on the topic of ignorance – its existence, locus, effects, removal etc. stem from post-Śaṅkara authors. Entire books have been written (usually in Sanskrit) and, from my attempts to read and understand some of them, mostly incomprehensible. Essentially, they purport to explain ‘what Śaṅkara really meant’ when he addressed the topic in his acknowledged bhāṣya-s and stand-alone works (principally Upadeśa Sāhasrī). This has always struck me as more than a little presumptuous – as though they understood Advaita better than Śaṅkara and believed they could untangle his poor attempts to explain these complicated issues and write more clearly about them.

In my ‘Confusions’ books, I take a similar stance to Sri Satchidanandendra in that I attempt to discover what Śaṅkara himself said on a given subject and largely ignore the later teachers apart from Sureśvara. (Note that I do not agree with all of Satchidanandendra’s views, but you will have to look to ‘Confusions, Vol. 2’ for details about that.)

As regards ‘ignorance’, and the ‘darkness’ metaphor, the principal sources where Śaṅkara spoke about these are Brahmasūtra Bhāṣya 2.2.28 and Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad Bhāṣya 1.2.1.

Śaṅkara is arguing with the beliefs of Nyāya-Vaiṣesika philosophers and Vijñāna Vada Buddhists in the relevant passages. I.e. he is not primarily presenting the teaching of Advaita at all but refuting the beliefs of others. Whenever he argues with other philosophers in his commentaries, he does not try to force Advaitin views upon them but rather uses their own reasoning to discredit their beliefs. Accordingly, we should place a lower importance upon such commentaries when discussing only Advaita philosophy.

***** Go to Part 2 *****