The reification of ignorance or the One-percent Brigade
There has recently been a brief spate of posts relevant to this topic on the Advaitin List. I rarely post there these days for fear of getting involved in long arguments with members committed to opposing views. But, after someone claimed that 99% of Advaitins accepted that ‘ignorance’ was a really existent entity, I posted to assert my membership of the ‘1% Brigade’, explaining that “I mainly wanted to reassure those readers who were dismayed to think that they were in the 1% and apparently did not understand Advaita!”
What I said was:
“(In volume 2 of ‘Confusions’), one of the aspects that I specifically address is the notion of avidyā as a really existent entity and I am afraid that I have to conclude, using reason and common sense, as well as the quotations, that what is meant by ‘ignorance’ is simply ‘lack of knowledge’. Essentially, it is a language problem. So, yes, there is certainly ignorance in the deep-sleep state, simply because the mind is resolved and incapable of having knowledge about anything. But there is no mūlāvidyā, I’m afraid. And I hope that many will be convinced if they read all of the arguments.”
I later used the metaphor of darkness, stating that “darkness is not an entity – it is simply absence of photons in the visible electromagnetic spectrum”. But Chandramouli rightly pointed out that Ṥaṅkara uses the metaphor of darkness as a real entity, so this would imply that ignorance, too, is real.
Accordingly, I later thought to use a different metaphor and I embodied it into a short story to provide interest:
*****
A: It was probably a suicide pact. Either that or they were both incredibly stupid. But it did not entirely add up. The bodies of both had obviously suffered, but the organs of X – the one who died ¬– were seriously damaged, while those of the other, Y, were still functioning more or less normally.
B: So what was it that actually killed X?
A: Emptiness. There was literally nothing in the stomach, and had not been for some considerable time. No one can survive for long with that, especially in those conditions. Emptiness causes the body to degenerate and eventually die. They just set off to walk across the desert with only a supply of water.
B: But wasn’t Y’s stomach also empty? If so, why didn’t the emptiness kill him, too?
A: No idea – very mysterious. The emptiness certainly made him weak but he is recovering quite successfully in hospital.
B: I suppose you could look at all this as a metaphor for ignorance and saṃsāra. Emptiness causes death of the body in the same way that ignorance causes saṃsāra.
Yes – that’s very perceptive. It hadn’t occurred to me but you are quite right!
Incidentally, there was one other strange fact, although it seems unrelated. Y had apparently told X that he (Y) was diabetic and had to have daily injections of insulin. But, when we analyzed the contents of the syringe, it wasn’t actually insulin at all. It turned out to be a glucose and protein solution with added vitamins and minerals. Can’t imagine what the purpose of that might have been…
*****
My intention here was to make the readers work out the symbolism for themselves (so as to emphasize the point) but maybe it was a little too obscure. At any rate, there was only one response – from someone who did not understand it! Accordingly, I tried a different approach:
*****
Valid teaching does not contradict reason or experience. The statements that are often made about ignorance frequently contradict both.
There will be innumerable topics about which you are ignorant. Let’s take the Mandarin Chinese language and Particle Physics as likely examples. Why are you ignorant? Because you never made the effort to learn about them from qualified sources. Yes, we say that we are ‘ignorant’ about them but what this really means is simply that we do not have knowledge of them.
If we go to night school, read books and spend time living in China; if we have the dedication, mental discipline and still-functioning memory, we may conceivably come to be able to read, speak and maybe even write a little of the language. We can then say that we have acquired some knowledge of Chinese. We might even say that we have eliminated some Chinese ignorance, although this would be a somewhat contrived way of putting it.
But will we then also have acquired knowledge of Particle Physics, or destroyed some of its ignorance? Of course not!
Knowledge and ignorance are topic-related. We have Advaita-related ignorance (call it ‘Self-ignorance’ if you like) because we haven’t followed a suitable course of learning. This ignorance is ‘removed’ by sādhana catuṣṭaya sampatti followed by śravaṇa-manana with (ideally) a traditional teacher.
There is nothing obscure or complicated about this and no need at all to reify ignorance. If you do not know something, you study it and acquire knowledge. In the case of Advaita, it is the acquiring of Self-knowledge that gives mokṣa, not the ‘destruction of ignorance’. (And actually, of course, we are already free, we just don’t know it – hence the need to study all of this until that truth dawns!)
*****
So now, to return to the ‘murder story’. Character A believed that it was ‘emptiness’ that killed X. But Y’s stomach was empty, too. A could not explain this. It was revealed at the end that Y had been injecting himself with a solution of minerals, sugars, protein etc. I.e. he had actually been effectively taking in food intravenously. And this, of course, was the explanation as to why Y had not died. The body needs food in order to live. X had not been getting any so died. Y had executed a very clever and premeditated murder.
The parallel is simply that A was reifying ’emptiness’ in the same way that many Advaitins reify ‘ignorance’. Ignorance is simply a word we use to speak about lack of knowledge, just as ‘emptiness’ is a word to talk about lack of food. It is lack of knowledge that causes saṃsāra, not ‘ignorance’.
*****
Volume 2 of ‘Confusions in Advaita Vedanta’ has now gone to the publisher for copy-editing prior to publication. There are around 70,000 words on the topic of ‘Ignorance’, covering all of the areas of confusion that I encountered in my two years of reading and research. (The rest of this volume covers what happens on enlightenment and, in particular, the fact that the world does not disappear!) My current best guess is that the book will be published mid-2024. The good news is that it will probably be available from Amazon quite quickly after that, unlike Volume 1, which is still only available from the publisher in India. I will obviously post again when more definite information is available. I will also post some extracts and the complete ‘Contents’ list in due course.
Dear Dennis,
Just a clarification lest your post may be misunderstood.
I did not mean to say // that Ṥaṅkara uses the metaphor of darkness as a real entity // to quote you. He does not consider **darkness** in a metaphorical sense at all. The term darkness is used in the same sense as and on par with terms like water, fire, the sky, the air, heaven, the sun, the quarters, the moon and the stars, the ether, and light (the general light).
Other than that I have only one observation to make here. I did not participate further in the thread in Advaitin for the same reason you cited, it could involve me in endless avoidable discussions.
Ignorance has many aspects. It is not relevant in the sense you have considered, judging by the illustrations and explanations given by you, in Advaita SidhAnta. A more representative illustration would have been कण्ठगतचामीकरवत् (kaNThagatachAmIkaravat) (like a gold necklace worn round the neck). Which fact is forgotten and searching for the same all over the place thinking that it is lost or misplaced. Or raised spectacles worn over the eyes and forgotten. Searching for the same all over the place. That is also Ignorance. I need not elaborate on the difference between what you have cited and the above. I am sure you have come across this in connection with Advaita SidhAnta. If you have not covered this type of Ignorance in your 70000 plus text, then I am afraid you have missed the essence of Advaita Sidhanta as far as Ignorance is concerned.
Regards
A small correction, for the sake of clarity.
In place of // raised spectacles worn over the eyes and forgotten //, please read as // spectacles worn over the eyes raised over the forehead and forgotten //.
Best Wishes
Dear Chandramouli,
Thanks for that. I used the lost necklace metaphor under the heading of ‘Becoming, gaining or reaching Brahman’ in Volume 1 of ‘Confusions’. I.e the fact that we only have to realize what has always been the case was established quite early in the series.
Best wishes,
Dennis
Dear Dennis, this is a wonderful post.
Ignorance seems Analogous to the “wave function” in QM.
Very last section here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function
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Ontology
Main article: Interpretations of quantum mechanics
Whether the wave function really exists, and what it represents, are major questions in the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Many famous physicists of a previous generation puzzled over this problem, such as Schrödinger, Einstein and Bohr. Some advocate formulations or variants of the Copenhagen interpretation (e.g. Bohr, Wigner and von Neumann) while others, such as Wheeler or Jaynes, take the more classical approach[43] and regard the wave function as representing information in the mind of the observer, i.e. a measure of our knowledge of reality. Some, including Schrödinger, Bohm and Everett and others, argued that the wave function must have an objective, physical existence. Einstein thought that a complete description of physical reality should refer directly to physical space and time, as distinct from the wave function, which refers to an abstract mathematical space.[44]
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Or, if the reader doesn’t like QM, here is Einstein.
“Time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live,” Albert Einstein
Glad you like it, Shishya! Your comparison of ignorance with the wave function is an interesting one. But, although I covered the basic Hydrogen wave function in my Chemistry degree, I can’t say that I ever really ‘understood’ it, other than in a mathematical sense. I suspect that applies to most people! In fact, maybe we could say that QM is the mechanism for making use of vyavahAra without actually understanding it – for that we need Advaita!
Whether understood in terms of wave functions or physical space and time, a complete description of physical reality should refer directly to its physical content. This physical content of entire Creation, including Space and Time, in the ultimate analysis, is AvidyA or Ignorance in the vyAvahArika status. That makes AvidyA or Ignorance bhAvarUpa or an existant. This is as per Advaita Sidhanta.
Best wishes
I disagree with this way of expressing it. According to my understanding (of Advaita), the ‘physical content of entire Creation, including Space and Time, in the ultimate analysis, is’ Brahman. ‘Ignorance’ only comes into it when we are talking about the extent to which a jIva realizes this. And, as I have said, a better way of putting this – one less liable to lead to confusion – is to talk about the extent to which the jIva has gained knowledge about the nature of reality, from shruti and guru.
Best wishes,
Dennis
That is reification of Ignorance
Best Wishes
You have missed out on a very important term used by me. My statement was // This physical content of entire Creation, including Space and Time, in the ultimate analysis, is AvidyA or Ignorance in the vyAvahArika status //. You have cut out the words // in the vyAvahArika status //. If you add them, then my statement stands. It is a common practice to omit the substratum Brahman when addressing vyavaharika status. Copying below from one of my recent posts.
// In BUB 1-5-1, the term *satya* has been given to nAmarUpAs. In mUrtAmUrta BrAhmaNa also the term *satya* has been used for panchabhutas having as their essence kArya and karaNa. BUBV 2-4-418 states that vedAntins call this as avidyA. Their meaning is that they are अविद्याकल्पित (avidyA kalpita) (imagined through avidyA) //.
Clearly Sri SSS concedes that Swami Sureswaracharya also admits avidyA to be bhAvarUpa. However Sri SSS just declares that this should only be understood as *imagined* through avidyA and not as bhAvarupa. He does not assign any reasons for such a conclusion //.
Best Wishes
Is not mUlAvidyA considered effectively to be the ’cause’ of creation by those who accept its existence? In which case, you cannot talk about it being part of vyavahAra, can you? (In any case, ALL of Advaita is in vyavahAra, isn’t it.)
Incidentally, Sureshvara has the following to say in his Sambandha Vārttika:
180. It is not proper that knowledge should extend to things which have no actual existence; and nescience is not a thing that really exists, since it cannot stand the test of (accurate) knowledge.
181. That nescience is no more than nescience (or false), is established by this one criterion alone, namely that it cannot stand the test of (true) knowledge…
184. Hence it is impossible to see, by any method of knowledge, that there is nescience in him (Brahman) or what is the nature of such nescience, or whose it is; for it is exclusively the result of experience.
Best wishes,
Dennis
Reg // Is not mUlAvidyA considered effectively to be the ’cause’ of creation by those who accept its existence? In which case, you cannot talk about it being part of vyavahAra, can you? (In any case, ALL of Advaita is in vyavahAra, isn’t it.) //,
Yes. Being the ‘cause’ of Creation is indeed one aspect of mUlAvidyA. It enjoys vyavaharika sattA (vYavaharika Reality). So does Creation. Why can mUlAvidyA not be talked of as being part of the vyavahArika sattA? I did not understand your question. What is the doubt about? I also did not understand what exactly you wanted to point out through your bracketed observation. In Advaita SidhAnta, all else, other than Brahman/atman, are anAtma and enjoy vyAvaharika sattA only. What bearing does it have on the current topic?
Reg verses 180/181/184 you have cited from Sambandha vArtika, they are in answer to the objections raised by the BhedAbheda vAdi pUrvapakshin who raises objections as in verses 173 to 175 to consider the relationship between Brahman and Creation either as bheda alone or as abheda alone. SidhAntin points out, as in the verses you have cited, that the objections are not valid as avidyA is not considered to be Real in the same sense as Brahman in Advaita Sidhanta. There is no contradiction to whatever I have said so far in this thread.
Best Wishes
Apologies – the comment as a whole was not intended to be taken too seriously – in the spirit of the original post. I was simply pointing out that the very concept of ‘ignorance’, as with any concept, including the teaching of Advaita itself, is part of vyavahAra. And vyavahAra has no meaning except for a jIva within creation. Prior to creation, there is no jIva to have the concept of either vyavahAra or ignorance.
MUlAvidyA is thus an attempt to postulate something that is thought to be a part of creation as a cause of that creation. I.e. effectively suggesting a kArya as the kAraNa.
But, as I say, I was not being altogether serious!
As regards the Sureshvara quote, the context does not matter – he is still saying that “nescience is not a thing that really exists”. (Although I concede that, in this case, I did not attempt to go back to the original Sanskrit. If it does not actually translate as this, please give the correct translation and, if necessary, I will remove that from the book.)
Best wishes,
Dennis
Reg // MUlAvidyA is thus an attempt to postulate something that is thought to be a part of creation as a cause of that creation. I.e. effectively suggesting a kArya as the kAraNa //,
Is this to be taken seriously or not?? Anyway, taking it seriously, I will answer. Wrong !!! Actually it is postulating kAraNa of the kArya. Creation is kArya. It is nothing other than its kAraNa, namely mUlAvidyA. Ornaments are kArya. They are nothing other than gold, their kAraNa.
Reg // As regards the Sureshvara quote, the context does not matter – he is still saying that “nescience is not a thing that really exists”. (Although I concede that, in this case, I did not attempt to go back to the original Sanskrit. If it does not actually translate as this, please give the correct translation //,
Translation is correct. Incorrect understanding of the context has led to a wrong conclusion !!! Context certainly does matter. **really exists ** should be understood literally. It needs to be understood as ** existence on par with Brahman **. Meaning thereby same level of Reality or Existence as that of Brahman. In Sanskrit ** samasattA**. In the context under consideration in Sambandha vArtika, according to Advaita SidhAnta, Brahman is the ONLY vastu or entity. There is no second entity. That includes Nescience. It does not ** really exist **. But in the context of our discussion in this thread, Nescience or Ignorance is presented as enjoying vyAvahArika level of existence. In that context, Nescience is an existant entity.
Best Wishes
Your logic takes us to the thorny problem of there being Brahman AND ignorance and thereby conflicting with non-duality. This is precisely an example of why I said originally that I did not want to get into discussions here. If you want to argue with my comments, please wait for the book and read the 70k words first rather than picking on just a few.
Oh no. I have no intention of arguing with your conclusions. I was just responding to your own desire seeking correction of the translation. I did not offer the same as MY logic. I only pointed out my understanding of what the vArtika verses were addressing. Please ignore my clarifications offered in response to your request if they are not in line with your thinking.
All the best.
Best Wishes
[Dennis says] “Knowledge and ignorance are topic-related. We have Advaita-related ignorance (call it ‘Self-ignorance’ if you like) because we haven’t followed a suitable course of learning. There is nothing obscure or complicated about this…If you do not know something, you study it and acquire knowledge.”
It’s worthwhile, I think, to recognize that Shankara has indicated direct realization of identity as the goal of Brahma-jijnasa. This knowledge, he says, has direct acquaintance (avagati) as its goal (BSB 1.1.1). There seems to be two kinds of knowledge involved here-one leading up to the other as the goal. The first or initial knowledge is an informative knowledge. This is indirect knowledge of the nature of Brahman gained through careful study of the Vedanta texts (If you do not know something, as Dennis rightly if perhaps somewhat optimistically observes, you study it and acquire knowledge). This knowledge is pramana janya, arising from an accredited source of knowledge such as scriptural testimony. This knowledge is object-oriented (vastu tantra), and in that sense, factual or objective knowledge. This tells us what Brahman is, and also why or in what sense, Brahman is also called Atman. Although this is knowledge of Brahman insofar as it has Brahman for its object, this knowledge is not Brahmavagati, not the direct knowledge of Brahman reached through realization of self-identity. This latter knowledge is intuitive. It is not knowledge in the ordinary sense. It is also not pramana janya, since all pramanas (sources of knowledge) presuppose dualism of subject and object, and necessarily takes its content as an objective something (visaya). Brahmavagati is direct knowledge the clue to which is supplied by the kind of indirect knowledge of Brahman as the absolute identity (atman), of all and everything that the Vedanta texts may deliver to us. The desire for knowledge of Brahman is not to end with mere informative and objective knowledge of Brahman secured through an assiduous study of, and critical reflection on, the Vedanta texts. But that factual knowledge, which necessarily operates in certain cognitive modes (vritti) insofar as Brahman is represented there as an object (visaya) of knowledge, is to lead up to, and culminate in, direct self-realization, that is, realization of one’s own identity in Brahman.
Hi Rick,
I have to disagree wtih this, although it is certainly what many seekers believe. The only pramAna for Self-knowledge is shAstra. It is certainly true that simply hearing or reading that ‘I am Brahman’ is unlikely to bring about enlightenment. It takes time to absorb, reflect and question this. Hence the need for manana and nididhyAsana.
But one cannot go away and ‘experience’ Brahman. (One is always Brahman already.) Nor is there some other sort of knowledge to be gained. As Shankara puts it in is bhAShya on Brihad. 2.4.5:
“It should first be heard from a teacher and from the scriptures, then reflected on through reasoning, and then steadfastly meditated upon. Thus only is It realized – when these means, viz. hearing, reflection and meditation, have been gone through.”
The belief that knowledge from one pramAna has to be validated by another is called parataḥ prāmāņya vāda, and it is the belief of the nyāya-vaiśeṣika philosophers.
Best wishes,
Dennis