Vidya and Avidya
Acharya Prashant: We do not pay attention to stuff physical and instead keep talking of consciousness, why? Because remember that consciousness is the subject matter of vidya . Avidya talks of everything except consciousness. So science, technology, everything comes in the domain of *avidya*—history, geography, languages, mathematics, economics.
What is it that vidya comprises? — Consciousness. Now, look at this fellow who is trying to get vidya , he worships vidya without knowing anything or much about the factual or objective world. Do you understand the situation? He is saying, “I do not know anything about the world, I do not know about the material, I do not know about the body or sensual perception. But I am greatly interested in consciousness.” This man does not understand the material but he is interested in consciousness. Is this clear what this man wants?
Now, what is consciousness? Consciousness is that which remains sandwiched between the material and the transcendental. Without the material man’s consciousness is nothing, or is it? Remove your brain, where is your consciousness? Remove your brain, where are your grand thoughts? Remove your brain, can you even meditate? Have you ever found a headless man meditating? Even to meditate you require this physical head. That is the nature of man’s consciousness — even though it aspires for the skies, yet it is factually rooted in the earth. It merely aspires for the skies, remember, those skies remain unknown to it. But what is it factually rooted in? The earth.
Now, what is this man saying? This pursuer of vidya , what is he saying? He is saying, “All I care for is the skies. I am a student of consciousness, all I care for is the skies. I have nothing to do with matters of the earth because they all come in the purview of avidya .” He says, “Avidya, I totally abhor. I don’t want to know avidya , these are matters of the soil, the earth. I don’t want to know about any object. All objects are false. What does a spiritual man have to do with the world? Why do I need to know mathematics or geography or history or what is going around here? I am not interested at all. What am I interested in? God and transcendence.” Because if you are studying consciousness, consciousness is these two. We said consciousness has these two components, very loosely put. These are not the component of consciousness, but for the sake of discussion I am putting it this way.
So, two components are there in consciousness: one, the physical component which you could call the brain, the body or the universe and then the metaphysical component. The metaphysical component is anyway unknowable. Who can know the Truth? Or can you? The metaphysical component anyway by definition is unknowable. The metaphysical is unknowable, the physical you don’t want to know. What the hell are you left with? I will tell you what he is left with. He is left with a lot, we will come to it. This is the story of most spiritual beings. So, be very alert. A trap waits for each of us, none of us is beyond. Metaphysical is unknowable, physical, I am no more interested in, because I am a spiritual seeker, you see. Why are you telling me stories of the world? I do not know what’s going on in politics. I don’t know how to drive, how to cook, how to play. I can’t hold the rackets in my hands properly. Everything that has to do with the physical universe, I am a dud at. In matters of this world, who am I? A dud. In matters of those worlds (pointing upwards) nobody can know anything. So factually, fundamentally, I am someone, who is a dud in a double role. He is a dud with three ds (ddud). But, will he ever accept that he is a dud or a double dud?
No, how will he compensate, how will he convince himself that he is okay? You see, knowing the matters of this world, knowing the matters in your mind, your hormones, your emotions, your thoughts, or knowing how the glaciers and the mountains are and how you have explosions in the hills, all this requires work, effort. Even reading requires some work. Let’s say, you are not going physically to the African forests, even if you have to read about them, it requires effort. Now, this fellow has convinced himself that “I do not need any avidya . Forests! All that they have is physical trees, and avidya is nonsense, maya. So, I do not want any avidya .” The fact of the matter is, acquiring avidya is tough. You have to struggle; you have to put in a lot of disciplined work. Knowledge just does not come easily on its own, you have to effortfully acquire it. So that option is closed because this fellow has contempt for both avidya and for labour, for work.
What will he do? Because some knowledge he needs to have. He needs to tell himself, “I know something.” If he says, “I know something about this world,” then he will be exposed. Because some subject matter expert will come and question him and he will not know anything. Suppose he says he knows something about a particular glacier, then some professor in geography or geology will come and ask him a few questions and he will be exposed. Suppose he says he knows something about the body, then some expert in anatomy or some doctor or some researcher will come and again expose him. He says, “I know something about history,” again he will be exposed. So, what does he do now? There has to be something very, very evil, absolutely wicked that he does now, otherwise, the Rishis would not have said that “Those who delight in vidya alone enter a darkness even deeper.”
Something very sinister is brewing, what is it? Think. This fellow needs to convince himself and others to be respectable in his own eyes that he knows something. Only two things are there to be known in the field of vidya, either this world or that (pointing upward), that which is unknowable. This world he neither knows nor can he claim to know because if he claims, his claims would be exposed. So, what does he do? And that which he does has been done by all the hypocrites, priests, and charlatans throughout history. What is it? He will manufacture knowledge about the Beyond. Because he has to say that he has some knowledge. Worldly knowledge he has not, so what does he do? He concocts knowledge, he manufactures stories. He says, “I have special knowledge of the Beyond, I will tell you. God lives in a special palace”.
Now, no scientist can dispute this. He can never be refuted decisively on this or can he be? Yeah well, you can argue with him. But you cannot decisively disprove what he is saying because what he is saying is beyond verification, it cannot be falsified. Or, that these certain things are within the body but no equipment or probe can detect them. What he is saying is, these things are there but they cannot be detected. How do you falsify him? You cannot falsify him. Or, such an experience can be had: a great exotic and uplifting bliss you can experience. But only if I bless you. — This has been the method of the fraudsters. The cheat who has labelled himself as a guru and this has been happening since centuries and millennia. This bugger has no worldly knowledge. Ask him about any academic discipline and he is zero. He talks a lot, he tries to philosophize but grill him on philosophy and he will show up as ignorant. He has no knowledge at all but he keeps talking about everything. And whatever he talks about, he talks about in a way that can neither be verified nor be falsified. It is not open to experimentation at all. So, he will say strange things. He will say, “I know this special god who lives in this mountain and I know him.” Or he will say, “In my past, when was there in that zone on that hill, these special things happen to me.” Now, can you verify it? Can you falsify it? This is the way of the fraud.
That is the reason the Upanishad had warned us so much in advance. “The one who is pursuing objective knowledge is merely blind to his intentions.” Get the difference straight. “The one who is pursuing objective knowledge alone is merely blind to his intentions. The one who is pursuing subjective knowledge alone is a hypocrite who is not blind to his intentions, instead, he is supporting his evil intentions.” Who is a bigger fraudster and a bigger fool, then? Did you get this? Are you getting the difference?
The one who is pursuing objective knowledge, at most, is ignorant about what his real intentions are. He is working hard in the laboratory, he wants to know something about plasma, let’s say — the fourth state of matter. He is very interested in knowing, he does not know why he is interested. But this charlatan knows fully well what he is doing. What is he doing? He is making a fool of everybody. He is just fleecing everybody for the sake of his own carnal material pleasure or popularity or prestige. So, who is the bigger evil? The second one. You will have no worldly knowledge but you will start weaving stories — cock and bull stories, or snake and bull stories, stories and stories. And gullible and scared people will fall into your trap. And I didn’t say uneducated people, sometimes even very educated people can act very foolishly. Because you see, you are not talking of anything verifiable, you are talking of none less than God!
So, even if you are trained in science and technology you can still start feeling, “You see this man is saying that he has directly met God, on those hills. So, I mean what if he is even five percent right, why should I run the risk of displeasing, you know such a big man? It is far better to you know touch his feet and just believe in whatever he says. Afterall, what do I lose. And his stories are big, seriously big and his claims are so outrageous that I can’t even dismiss them. He says that ‘If your nose has fallen off your face then I can pick up your nose and just put it back.’ He says, If your hair has fallen, then give me your hair and I will plant it back. Or if your soul has left your body, you have died, then I can catch your soul like Jacques Kallis (South African cricket player) diving in the slips. And then I can put it back in your body.’ And you start feeling doubtful, you say, “This man is surely talking a lot of horse shit or snake shit, but what if there is an iota of truth in what he is claiming? Let me play safe. I mean all that he is demanding is rupees one lakh for five hundred milliliters of consecrated water. I can pay that to him, you know”. He says that if he touches a tumbler of water then the water remembers his touch. “Water has memories,” he says. That, too, in front of technical people and then he says, “Now this water has been consecrated and I will sell it for one lakh rupees.” “I mean it’s just one lakh rupees, I can just pay and get some insurance cover you know. Otherwise, who wants to incur his wrath.” That’s what the Rishi is warning us against here.—Anybody who says he has knowledge of divinity is to be avoided like death. Anybody who says he has had profound experiences in meditation is to be just smiled at. Anybody who says that he can see your aura is a fool. Anybody who says that he experiences energy rising from one point in the body to another point in the body is in self-delusion. These are the people the Upanishad is warning us against. Anybody who says that something physical starts happening to him, when he visualizes god in this way or that way, is just cheating himself. Are you getting this?
Vidya is a very special field, it has to be understood. Now, we will come to the real difference between avidya and vidya . It is usually never expressed this way therefore, you must now know what it is. Avidya is objective knowledge with no consideration for the intention that seeks that knowledge. Vidya too is objective knowledge but with consideration for the subject that seeks that knowledge. So, it is not really that avidya is about objective knowledge and vidya is about subjective knowledge. Both are about objective knowledge. Knowledge cannot be anything but objective, what else can you know of? If you can know of something then obviously it is an object.
So vidya too comprises of objective knowledge, but in vidya you are not blind to your intentions, that is vidya . You see when you go to your colleges or universities, do you find your professor questioning regularly, “Why do you want to become a doctor?” Does that happen? It’s almost like a shop, you want to buy a t-shirt, the seller will not ask you, “Sir, why do you want a t-shirt?” Similarly, your professors never ask you, “Why do you want to become an engineer?” Maybe, if the selection process consisted of a personal interview as well, then in that for the sake of formality you are asked this question. But just once. Once you gain admission then in the duration of the course nobody asks you, “Why are you pursuing this course? That is avidya .
Your intentions are never questioned, your intentions are never explored. The professor will not walk in and begin the day with, “So, what does philosophy mean to you? What is in you that feels attracted to mathematics?” It would a rare professor who would go into these questions, he is not supposed to. And no student is ever evaluated on the purity or clarity of his intentions. Or is he? If you have taken admission in a mathematics course, what percentage of your overall assessment depends on your intention? Zero. You are assessed purely based on your objective knowledge, that is avidya . Nobody cares about who you are and why you are studying and gaining knowledge at all, that is avidya .
Vidya is just the same as avidya except that in vidya the shikshak (teacher) is also a guru. He will keep asking you, “Why are you studying this son? Who are you in all this? Well, you know so much but where are you in all this? Or are you just a hard disk or a data drive of some kind? Where is the self, where is the ‘I’? What is the centre of your whole knowledge? To whom is all this knowledge? This is vidya . This is real vidya . And it is about this vidya that it is said that, “That which liberates is vidya .” Here the Rishi is saying, “Those who delight in vidya fall into the deep darkness,” at the same time the scriptures say, “*ya vimuktaye sa vidya*”, that which liberates is called vidya . Now, how can there be this contradiction? Surely there is something called false vidya and true vidya . Here the seer is alerting you against false vidya . And in that other verse, the seer is telling you about real vidya . That which liberates, but liberates from what? Liberates from your blindness about yourself, that is called vidya . So, do you need separate and special centres where spiritual training has to be given? Not necessarily. The same classrooms where languages, sciences, humanities, arts and commerce and economics are being taught — these same institutions can act as centers of vidya as well, provided the ones there have the sagacity to act not merely as knowledge providers but wisdom enablers. Unfortunately, that is rarely the case. But if you have to choose between a place which offers only vidya and a place that offers only avidya . If you have to, as they say, “Choose between the Devil and the deep sea,” which one must you choose? A place that offers only avidya . At least, this place is honest to the extent that most of our colleges and universities are. A place that offers only vidya , will be as corrupt as most of our ashrams and spiritual organizations are.
Ideally, both these should be offered together under one roof, in the same classroom. That would be the ideal institution. That is the kind of place, that is the kind of centre of learning that your foundation seeks to create. I do not know when that would come. That would be the real university and it will be indistinguishable from a temple. That would be the real university and the real temple. Today’s universities are not universities at all because they offer only avidya and today’s temples are not temples at all because the offer only vidya . The seer is saying, “You need both of them together.” So, it is not without reason that professors are respected whereas godmen are vilified, there is a clear reason. And the Rishi would agree. It is not that a professor is a great human being but a professor is certainly better than a godman. A professor at least offers you avidya , which is an honest, objective fact about the world or about the body or about the mind. But the godman is a fraudster who does not know the world and instead he is offering you fantastic stories about the Beyond. And those stories will get you nowhere. It’s just that instead of losing your ignorance, you will lose your bank balance. That’s what the guru is anyway eyeing.
