The Darkness of Ignorance (Part 2)

*** Read Part 1 ***

Brahmasūtra 2.2.28

Darkness as a Physical Entity

It is true that it is possible to conclude that Śaṅkara regarded darkness as an actual entity. One of the passages in support of this is his bhāṣya on Brahmasūtra 2.2.28. As already noted, he is arguing with the Buddhists and talking about ‘creation’ and the existence of the world. At one point he says:  

tamaso darśanāt, prāgabhāva iva tamaso darśanaṁ dṛṣṭi-pratyakṣatvāt.

Because of the perception of darkness, it is like the perception of prior non-existence, as darkness is perceived by the sense of sight.

Here, the ‘perception’ of darkness is not, in the empirical sense, like seeing a table in the room but in a metaphorical sense, as in the way the carpenter might visualize the table before setting about making it. Thus, just as we might say that ‘darkness prevents us from seeing the table in the room’ (after it has been made!), we say that ‘ignorance prevents us from realizing that we are Brahman’. But the truth of the situation is that there is no light in the room, and no one has put the knowledge into our mind.

Simple confusion of language

It is perfectly natural that we invent new words to make our communication easier, but this often inadvertently gives rise to confusion when we try to understand what is happening in greater detail. As soon as we start to believe that there is an actual entity ‘ignorance’, we then start talking about projecting powers (vikṣepa) and obscuring powers (āvaraṇa) and all manner of imaginary complications to ‘explain’ what is happening! If there is such an entity, we have for a start to decide where it is (its ‘locus’), and how it can exist in addition to non-dual Brahman!

It is obvious that we can treat darkness as being something real. We are aware of it. If you go on a tour of a cave system and the guide switches out the lights, the intensity of the darkness is almost tangible. And if you then attempt to get out of the cave, you will find that bumping into other people or tripping over cables etc. is almost inevitable – the darkness effectively ‘obscures’ everything. Such ‘properties’ make it very useful for talking about knowledge and ignorance so it is perfectly natural that Śaṅkara should make use of it to help convey the message of Advaita. That is its only function; all the teaching has to be dropped in the end anyway.

It is true that Śaṅkara himself does refer to darkness as having the property of ‘concealing’. E.g. in his bhāṣya on Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 3.7.13, he refers to tamas (darkness) as an āvaraṇa-ātmaka (something that has the nature of covering or concealing). But we should resist the temptation to take this as meaning that he regards darkness as an actual entity. He is simply referring to the fact that the condition indicated by the word obscures any objects, in the same way that ignorance obscures knowledge of the Self. It is a metaphorical / metaphysical concept.

In ‘Confusions’ Vol. 2, I said:

‘Destruction of ignorance is the rise of knowledge’ and ‘ignorance is eradicated by the rise of knowledge’ may effectively mean the same thing but the implied meanings differ slightly. Replace the sentences by the darkness metaphor and we have: ‘destruction of darkness is the giving of light’ and ‘darkness is eradicated by the giving of light’. The first says that, when we introduce light, this actually is the removal of the darkness. I.e. it is the same reality that we are speaking of. On the other hand, ‘darkness is eradicated’ imputes a separate existence to something called ‘darkness’.

Another example might be filling up a bucket with water. We could say that this would destroy the prior ‘emptiness’ of the bucket if we wanted to be poetic but could we claim that ‘emptiness’ is a really existent entity? I suggest that this is completely analogous to the idea of destroying ignorance.

There is a very real danger in discussions such as these of missing the point of Advaita. It is a teaching method, obviously in vyavahāra, to bring our minds to the realization of the truth of non-duality. In reality, there are no seekers seeking Self-knowledge and no teachers transmitting it; indeed, no creation at all. So the value of any teaching is only in relation to its ability to convey this knowledge to a seeker. None of it is actually ‘true’. Why do so many people waste so much time arguing about it?

I believe that the original (scriptural) prakriyā-s and Śaṅkara’s bhāṣya-s used everyday (at the time) understanding of what can be seen and reasoned upon to bring about this realization. They do not require complex logic or modern scientific understanding to cut through the examples that they use. I believe that many post-Śaṅkara writers, and lots of modern-day academics, attempt to do precisely this. To my mind, it only serves to reduce the likelihood of a seeker understanding the message and nothing at all to ‘clarify’ it.

I think we can all appreciate that darkness is simply an absence of light. We can bring a torch into a cave but the only way that we can bring darkness into a room is by removing the source of the light. Ancients appreciated this without any special knowledge, even though we now know about photons and electromagnetic radiation.

It is true that there is a danger of modern scientific understanding presenting an obstacle to understanding traditional Advaita but one cannot ignore or reject basic knowledge of worldly things. For example, we can no longer accept the literal notion of the mind being ‘contained’ in the heart. Another example is that the scriptures speak of insects being ‘svedaja’, meaning ‘born from sweat or moisture’. Examples such as these were used by the ancients to point the listener towards an understanding of the non-dual truth. They may well have believed them at the time but their relevance was that they functioned well as metaphors. It was never necessary that they were literally true. And now we know that some of them are not. For those, their value as metaphors has largely been lost.

I suggest that darkness and ignorance being existent entities fall into this category. Undoubtedly potentially useful as teaching tropes, but only so long as we realize that they are not literally true.

***** Go to Part 3*****

2 thoughts on “The Darkness of Ignorance (Part 2)

  1. Hi Dennis,

    Good post.

    In GVK 547:

    “In the state of firm abidance in the atman (atma nistha), which is of the form of jnana, the pairing of knowledge and ignorance does not exist. The existence of something called ignorance is an unreal falsehood. The awareness that is one’s own being is real. Upon attaining true knowledge, it will be realised that to speak of ignorance is itself ignorance, and that the pure awareness ‘I am’, is our atma swarupa.”

  2. Hi Venkat,

    Thanks for that. I have added it to a new para on observations by modern teachers.
    It is a sort of ‘as if’ pAramArthika statement, though, rather than an empirical one, isn’t it? In 545, he says: “But, since they [knowledge and ignorance] do not exist in the real state where Self alone shines, the true knowledge is that one in which the duality of
    knowledge and ignorance does not exist.”

    I will see if I can find some others.

    Best wishes,
    Dennis

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