Vidya, Avidya and Gutter Knowledge
Acharya Prashant: There’s two kinds of knowledge and all the Vedas and ’chhanda’ and ’nirukht’ and ’jyotish’ and ’vyakarana’ —they form part of lower knowledge which is ’avidya’ or ’aparavidya’ . Then there is ’vidya’ or ’paravidya’ . Its characteristic is that it leads to ‘akshar’ —that which is indestructible. Real ‘vidya’ leads you to that which is immortal, timeless and indestructible. ‘kshar’ means prone to destruction. ‘Akshar’ means that which time cannot destroy.
Well, those were the days, you know, the king needed to be told of only these two levels of knowledge. Times have changed. I need to talk of a third level which is below, way below ‘avidya’. And most of us are well versed only in that kind of knowledge. That is the knowledge that fills up the common mind. That is the knowledge that constitutes 99 percent of all that we know.
Look at the contents of your mind. Are the contents coming from books of wisdom? You can read the Vedas as generally representing wisdom literature. So, what is Angiras saying? Angiras is saying lower knowledge consists of wisdom literature and jyotish and grammar and poetry and all these things. So, all that is lower knowledge—books of wisdom. And? Yes, astrology and grammar and so on. But what proportion of the contents of our mind actually comes from books of wisdom? As far as ‘vidya’ is concerned, it is in no way content of the mind. But the mind is indeed carrying content. Where is that content coming from? ‘Vidya’ cannot be stored in the mind.
Avidya is that which comes from worldly disciplines. You know, in those days these were the worldly disciplines—'chhanda’,‘nirukht’ and ‘jyotish’ and ‘vyakarana’. Today, you have other worldly disciplines as well. All the departments and stuff you have in the universities. Tell me, how much of your mental content is coming either from books of wisdom or from things the universities teach you? What proportion? Give me a number, please.
You keep thinking of a lot, right? And you say, you know a lot. All this that you know of, how much of it is coming from books of wisdom or the university curriculum? How much of it? Five per cent. I might be exaggerating. Five per cent. Where does the remaining 95 percent come from? And therefore, I propose to have another layer of knowledge far, far below ‘avidya’.
Most of the content of our mind is not even ‘avidya’. ‘Vidya’ cannot be the content of mind and the content that we carry is not even ‘avidya’. It is something absolutely special. It comes from no university. It comes from no book of wisdom. It comes from neither contemplation nor from reflection. It comes from the worst place possible. It comes from gossip. It comes from the TV screen. It comes from the movies. It comes from all that we put into our head in the name of entertainment and culture.
But such is the standard of this conversation. Such is the sublime setting of this conversation that the Rishi need not talk of that third and bottom most level of knowledge. He is referring to only the two higher levels because he is talking to a very worthy candidate. For example, if I am sitting next to an accomplished driver. I tell him, “Please change the gear.” I need not tell him, “Press the clutch first and then change the gear.” All that I say to him is, ‘Change the gear.’ It is understood that he will know that if the gear is to be changed and the clutch pedal needs to be pushed first. A lot of things can be happily left unsaid when you are talking to a worthy listener. No? And that's the delight of the speaker when he is talking to a deserving audience. He need not say a lot of things. He can just take them as understood. Here, the Sage can rightly take as understood and discarded the bottom most level of knowledge.
It is not even knowledge. But I am forced to call it knowledge because that's how we take it. We do take it as knowledge, don't we? All the nonsense that enters our mind from the various kinds of social and other influences, we don't really call it nonsense. We value it as knowledge.
In fact, all our values are coming from all the wrong places. If the value system itself is coming from the wrong places, how will you value the right thing? Therefore, you cannot even admonish somebody for not valuing the right thing. If somebody's eyesight is weak, do you chide him for not walking straight? If a tailor has a wrongly calibrated measuring tape, what do you accuse him of? Wrong measurement? But he hasn't measured wrongly. His problem is that his measuring tape itself is wrongly calibrated. That's the utter danger with having a wrong value system. We do not know what is really valuable and all the wrong things have been fed to us as valuable. And to varying extents, each person has internalized those values. Therefore, things that have absolutely zero value, things that are absolutely rubbish keep on occupying important places in our minds and therefore, in our lives. Stuff that you would never value at all, if you were not so heavily conditioned, comes to become the center of your life.
And when you are asked, “But why is this important?” You have no answer. You just say, “But, but, it is. Aisa hi hota hai (Happens this way only).” The moment somebody comes to a point in discussion where he is left with just this line—'but that's how things happen, but that's how it is supposed to be, but, you know, that's the way the world runs.’ You know that the fellow is heavily conditioned and doesn't even want to acknowledge that. He has no answer as to why such a thing must be important, why such a thing must be done. All that he can say is, “That's the way things run. That's the way things run.” We belong to that level and therefore, no Angiras would meet us.
And Angiras meets only someone who first of all is worthy of being lectured in ‘avidya,’ at least. Most of us are not fit candidates even to receive ‘avidya’. ‘Avidya’ is a big thing. Do you know what ‘avidya’ comprises of? Repeat to yourself. ‘All the wisdom literature and all the university curriculum. How many of us live by that? We don't. We live neither by science, nor by mathematics, nor by the literature we read in our school and college books and obviously, we don't live by the scriptures. All these have been clubbed together into one category. What the Rishis tell you and what the professors tell you has been bracketed into one and that is ‘avidya’. And we have listened neither to the Rishis nor to the professors. We have listened to radio jockeys and vulgar songs and YouTube influencers. How do we ignore them these days? These are the people who are our teachers. These are the people who sit at the driver's position in our minds. They run us. They drive us, as slave drivers. So, if and when you manage to rise above that trash, you come to ‘avidya’; not ‘vidya’, but to ‘avidya’.
All the worldly knowledge and all the knowledge in the scriptures—that's all ‘avidya’ and it's very, very useful, extremely useful. ‘Avidya’ is not a negation of ‘vidya’. ‘Avidya’ is just the lower level of knowledge. There are two kinds of ‘vidyas’, you could say, higher ‘Vidya’ which you call as ‘paravidya’ and the lower ‘Vidya’ which you call as ‘aparavidya.’ In fact, ‘aparavidya’ puts it more clearly than ‘avidya’. When it is said ‘avidya’, you feel as if it is the opposite of ‘vidya’. It's not the opposite of ‘vidya’. It's the lower kind of ‘vidya’. Your socks don't oppose your caps, do they? They complement your caps in winters, right? Your socks complement your caps. And therefore, the Seers go on to say you need both ‘vidya’ and ‘avidya’ just as you need both socks and caps. This is lower, that is upper but you need both, you need both. What you don't need is that ugly and shattered shoe called ‘worldly knowledge’. Below everything, not worthy of being worn. Socks never hurt, shoes do. Ever heard of socks that pinch? But, at least, in my times you used to have shoes that had things jutting out. They were not made properly either or they had grown too old and too used and therefore, if you wore them, you actually ran the risk of hurting your feet. Wore them and walk for long and you might actually find yourself bleeding in the feet. Throw that shoe away. It gives you nothing. It just makes you feel belonged to a huge mass of unworthy people. A huge mass of unworthy people linked together by their common center of knowledge. That's what makes them relate to each other. All of them have trash sitting at their mental centers and therefore, all feel a kinship to each other, like in a railway compartment.
Do you see how swiftly kinship grows? How does it grow? Two or three people are discussing some nonsense and three more will join in and then probably three more. What connects them? What makes them relate to each other? Nonsense. And that's the benefit that nonsense gives you and that's why you remain steeped in nonsense. It helps you feel connected to a lot of people and therefore secure. ‘He talks nonsense, he talks nonsense, he talks nonsense and therefore if I talk nonsense, I’ll belong to the family, happy big family, feel so warm and cosy, you know.’ Whereas, if you shed nonsense the doors of this happy family are closed on you and then there is insecurity and then it requires courage and faith. Most people don't prefer that. Therefore, the family of nonsense is huge.
And the family of nonsense has a lot of members who know that nonsense is nonsense and still don't dare to walk out. They are in the family not because they love nonsense but because they don't have the guts to walk out. So, very unhappily they stay in the happy family. They know things for what they are, at least, partially, but they can't call out things by their real names. They feel the price is too steep to pay. So, they say, “Fine, let's pretend that we, too, are a part of the nonsense. Let's engage in trivia just to keep others happy. And if others are kept happy, they'll not trouble us. At least they'll not throw us out of the trivia family.”
The only problem with that trivia mansion is that no Sage, no Angiras would ever be found there. Yes, you will have hundreds of people in that mansion but you will never have a Sage. So, you can either choose the comfort and security of being with and belonging to a large number of people or you can choose truth and beauty where they lie and they never lie within the trivia mansion.
Spirituality is, in a sense, extremely elitist. Not for the swarming populations; not because spirituality refuses them but because they refuse spirituality.
It is dangerous to even passively participate in nonsense. That you are not actively participating is no excuse. That you are only intermittently participating is no excuse. That you are just being worldly and diplomatic is no excuse. That you are with them just to tick the boxes is no excuse. Passive participation is not much better than active participation. In fact, in your passive participation, you are guilty of couragelessness as well. Those who are actively participating are at least being true to their convictions. They are doing what they think is right. They think trivia is right. So, they are engaging in trivia. But if you are someone who knows somewhere the trivia needs to be abhorred and are still participating actively or passively, then you are guilty of the worst kind of cowardice and your punishment would therefore, be far sterner than that of the active participant. You knew that you should not have been there and yet you were found there. You cannot be excused. You knew.
You know all these active participants. Who sustains them? The passive ones. The silence of the passive participants sustains the ruckus and the noise and the ugly music of the active ones. The active ones would fall dead in their tracks immediately, if all the indirect and passive support they receive is withdrawn. Cooperation is cooperation even if it's passive, is it not? You’ll have to refuse cooperation. You'll have to stop balancing things out. You will have to stop apportioning them a part of your life and mind. You cannot say, “You know, 26 days of the month I belong to the right thing but just four days let me escape away to trivia.” You cannot be pardoned. Four days is just too much, four hours is too much.
There have to be absolutes in the way of the Absolute, right? Isn’t it obvious? Why do you call the Truth absolute, then? If nothing in your life is absolute, if everything is diluted and corrupted and mixed and balanced, then why do you even talk of the Absolute? Shouldn't there be something non-negotiable in your life? That's called an absolute, right? ‘There's something I can never ever agree to.’ It's an absolute.
For most people, there is just nothing in life they can never ever agree to. Equally there is nothing in their life they can never ever disagree to. Everything is negotiable. Everything is in a gray zone. They are amenable to anything and everything given the right conditions, the right price. Everything is for sale. There's nothing that is not at all for sale. Everything simply carries a price tag. The price tag can be very steep. The number can be very high. Still, it's up for sale. This won't do. If there is nothing in your life that can never be compromised, you are dangerous. You need to be put away. Unless there is something that is dearer to you than even life, you are not alive.
There must be something for which you are prepared to happily die. In that sense, even the misled religious fanatic is better than the well-adjusted common man. And I say this with due deliberation. At least the religious fanatic has something bigger and higher than his mortal pleasures. He at least has an ideal. He at least has the courage to sacrifice. But the common man, all that he has is the body. ‘Give me happiness. Give me pleasure. Give me comfort. Give me a nice cosy body to lie upon and sleep with.’
So, I repeat, I am saying this with due deliberation: even the misled religious fanatic or the misled idealist, we don't have fanatics merely in the religious domain, right? You have people ready to sacrifice their lives for various causes. I’m not endorsing them. But I’m saying, “Even they are better than the common man. They have something here (pointing to the heart) . They at least have courage.” How much courage does the common man have?
The one we call as the ‘common man’ can sell anything, given the right price. What is the right price? The price that makes him salivate. The price that he thinks is too high for his standards and his standards are not at all high. So, you don't even have to offer him too high a price. Had he had really high self-esteem, why would he be the common man in the first place? He’s a common man because he values himself very lowly. So, you don't even have to offer him an astronomical amount. Offer him just 500 more than his own self-evaluation. He values himself at 10,000, you offer him 10,500. And he'll come running after you,—‘Please, please, I’m sold.’
All this would make no sense to the residents of the domain of the third kind of knowledge. What do we call it? There is higher, there is lower and then there is basement knowledge, gutter knowledge, sewer knowledge. What do we call it? Because higher and lower are taken. So, something far lower than the lowest has to be coined or invented: gutter knowledge. It still does not quite convey the stink but for want of a better word, until we coin a better word, let's manage with this— ‘gutter knowledge’. ‘Grave knowledge?’ There is too much gravity in it and it is something that conveys both the lowliness and the trivia. ‘Grave’ is not a trivial thing or is it? So, no. Gutter knowledge.
‘Vidya’ and ‘avidya’, both are things of the skies. First of all, reclaim yourself from the ‘gutter knowledge’ that enslaves you.
‘I should be doing that, he should be doing this. This is a good life. Now is the time. You should have that. He has so much. The society means this. The country means that. The religion means this. If you do this, you are a good man. If I do this, I am a bad man.’—This is gutter knowledge.
To rise above gutter knowledge, use ‘avidya’. That's the purpose and utility of ‘avidya’. The Upnishads talk of ‘avidya’ very highly. They say that if you do not have ‘avidya’, you will fall into a very dark hole. Now you know why? Because if you do not have there, what will you have? Gutter knowledge. And you just cannot totally avoid gutter knowledge because man is born in a gutter. Being born in gutter, it is obviously likely that gutter knowledge will find its way into you. The kid, by the time she's five, already has tons of gutter knowledge. Go and talk to any five-year-old, you'll see what I’m saying. Talk to a five-year-old and be astounded by the depth of gutter knowledge she already has.
To take care of gutter knowledge, there is avidya. Avidya has two aspects. Worldly, which we can broadly call as science. It could be the material sciences or the social sciences. So, there is science and there is spirituality, right? There is science and there is spirituality. Both of these things are missing from the minds of the common man because he has gutter knowledge. This is the hallmark of gutter knowledge. It will have neither science nor spirituality. And this is the hallmark of the gutter person. His words, his convictions, his values will correspond to neither science nor spirituality. It's coming from an altogether different place, gutter. He'll talk unscientific and unspiritual stuff. Check whether his beliefs are scientific and you will find—no. Check whether his words are coming from spirituality and you will find—no. That's the gutter person. In fact, this gutter person seriously abhors, even hates real science and real spirituality. To the scientist he will say, “Oh! You are just materialist. You do not know that there are mystical energies as well.” So, he does not like the scientist. To the spiritual person, he will say, “You know, you are not quite practical. You are just taking an extreme position and you want to know everything. You talk too much from logic. You don't have belief.”
It's a strange thing. We thought science and spirituality are probably likely to quarrel with each other. No, that's not the case. You see, ‘avidya’ brackets these two together, the Rishi and the Professor. Science and spirituality, both come together under the umbrella of ‘avidya’. Science and spirituality go together. What rails against both of them is the gutter. Science and spirituality are hand in hand. The gutter is the common enemy of both because the gutter is the basement of mental existence.
This mind that understands neither the world nor itself. It doesn't understand the world, so it hates science. It doesn't understand itself, so it dislikes spirituality. All that it likes is vague, nebulous, empty beliefs handed over by generations of foolishness and animal-like excitement served by the media. That's what it likes, the gutter. So, now you know why ‘avidya’ is important. Now you know why you must know how things are, why science is important. Now you must know how things inwardly are, why spirituality is important. If you don't have this, then you, all that you have is the gutter and the gutter is a default.
‘Avidya’ has to be learnt. Gutter comes to you on its own. In some way, we are born from the gutter into a gutter. The first gutter, and I again say this with both an apology and due consideration, the first gutter is the mother's womb because that's what gives you the physical body. And the physical body is the house of all conditioning and so I, with all deliberation, call it the gutter. So, we come from the gutter into the gutter. What do we come into? Man comes into a society. Man comes from the mother's womb into a society. We come from the gutter into it and the society loads you further with conditioning.
The gutter is the default. ‘Avidya’ has to be learned. You don't have to put any effort to acquire gutter knowledge. You might be illiterate, but you'll still have a tremendous amount of gutter knowledge, even an illiterate person. But ‘avidya’ has to be effortfully acquired. Then, ‘vidya’. What is ‘vidya’?
The purpose of ‘avidya’ is to prepare you for ‘vidya’. It's obvious. There is lower knowledge, then there is higher knowledge. The lower one is obviously meant to prepare you for the higher one. Why is avidya’ needed before you venture into ‘vidya’? Because with all the gutter beliefs, you just cannot approach ‘vidya’. First of all, you need to be scientific and spiritual to even approach ‘vidya’. And if you approach ‘vidya,’ then you move into the one who is indestructible. What does that really mean? Means you get rid of yourself. Because you are the one who is destructible. Understand this.
In the gutter dimension, you take yourself as a function of everything that is destructible, right? What does the mother's womb tell you? You are the body. And the body is destructible. You are born and you go to the school. You go to the playground. You meet with your peers, the kids. You go to a community hall. You go to a wedding. You watch the TV. You acquire stuff from your mobile phone. And what is all this making you feel about yourself? You are this. You are that. You are a cool dude. You are a sexy girl. You are an atheist. You are a believer. You are rich. You are poor. So, identities upon identities. And all of these, each of these identities, they relate to something that is destructible. You relate to these things because you do not know the truth of those things. You take those things as holy, sacred, important and therefore, you find it respectful and profitable to attach to them. No.
‘There is this concept. It's a great concept. Ten generations of my family have attached to this concept. So, I, too, start respecting this concept.’ This concept becomes my identity. This concept becomes my answer to who I am, whereas this thing is entirely destructible. If I am this thing, then I, too, am destructible. Now, this is where I stand in the gutter dimension. Then, I come to ‘avidya’.
‘Avidya’ tells me, “But that thing is destructible. But that thing is destructible.” So, I lose my attraction for that thing, the charm weans off. All the romantic notions fade away. What am I still left with? A hungry and noisy ‘I’. This ‘I’ was brought up on a diet of gutter nutrients. How did it get so big? What was it consuming all the time? All the stuff from the gutter, right? So, gutter vegetables, gutter this, gutter that; all that used to go into the mental self. Now, all the diet has been taken away or shown to be toxic. What does the ‘I’ do now? It stands looking for something else. It has been convinced that ‘All that you, so far, valued is valueless.’ But it has not yet been convinced that your very search for value outside of yourself is foolish. Please understand this. It has been told very clearly that you associated with this thing. Now, this thing is merely superstition. So, the thing is dropped. You associated with this kind of thing; this thing is merely money. So, that thing drops. The association gets severed, broken. But as the result of the ‘avidya’ process, what are we left with? The hungry and boisterous ‘I’ still remains. It’s hungry and complaining. What is it saying? ‘All that I had from the gutter, you have taken away. Give me something more.’ Why does it ask for something more? Why does it ask for a replacement? Because one thing has still not been taken away. Its own self-concept, its own existence. That still remains, that still remains. Now for that, there is ‘vidya’.
‘Look at yourself. Look at yourself. Look at yourself. And therefore, there can be no book on ‘vidya’. Because it's very ‘real time’. You cannot do it on instruction. It's something completely intimate to yourself. Even the teacher can just respectfully and helplessly stand at a distance and watch because you have to do it. Only you have the authority to accept your non-existence. Otherwise, look at the absurd contradiction: how can the teacher convince you of your non-existence? If you are convinced, you still exist. So, the teacher can just respectfully wait and watch. The teacher watches for that grand, that sacred and rare moment when the disciple says, “I see, I don't exist,” and falls silent for the last time. Just this much, last words, ‘I see, I am not’, and after this you don't even see because you are not, you are not. That's ‘vidya’. And therefore, ‘vidya’ leads you into the indestructible ‘akshara’ as the Upnishad says ‘because now you have nothing left to be destroyed anymore.’ Who or rather what took away all the things that the ‘I’ was attached to? ‘Avidya’. And who took away the ‘I’ itself? ‘Vidya’. Now all that is left is ‘akshara’—Immortal, deathless, fearless. Neither do I have anything that the world can take away, nor do I exist at all in the world. So, even the possibility that I’ll ever have anything in the future to be taken away by the world does not exist.
First level of total security is that ‘I am possession-less’. Who gave me that first level of security? ‘Avidya’. And the second level of absolute security is that ‘I don't exist’. How will you harm me? I am not. ‘I see I am not.’ How will you harm me? Now, there is total security. Now, there is the absolute. Now, there is fearlessness.
What’s there in the gutter? Vulnerability, chaos, fear, insecurity of the worst kind, depression, anxiety, tension. ‘What if he takes away that? Can't sleep properly. What if that is stolen? What if that is hurt? What if that falls? What if that rises?’ All this is the gutter level of existence. I must say, more topical to us than ‘vidya’ and ‘avidya’ is the gutter level. Pay attention to that. ‘Vidya’ and ‘avidya’ are both for Shaunak. We would be better served by investigating the gutter that surrounds us. Talking of ‘vidya’ and ‘avidya’, of ‘Shaunak’ or ‘Angiras’ is a bit absurd. We are not very worthy candidates. Somebody would call it preposterous.
See your thoughts, your words, your habits, beliefs and where they are coming from. See, see please, see that's you, that's your life. See why something is important to you. See why you must receive a particular phone call. See why you must exist in a particular WhatsApp group. See why you must visit a certain place. See why must you spend time the way you do?
Sewage will keep flowing in if you don't block the inlets. You understand inlets? From where do you receive all that sewage? You can politely let that crap keep flowing in. And why am I letting all the shit come to my mind? Because it is, you know, holy shit! It is my tau’s (paternal uncle) shit. How do I be disrespectful to my tau and tell him not to keep shitting on my face? So, I’ll just be a passive recipient, you know, tau is shitting and blabbering; unending blabber from tau. And what am I doing as a cultured, respectful relative, junior relative? What am I doing? Just passively letting all that flow into me. And what am I saying? ‘You know, tauji, elderly. I’m not participating. I'm just letting him blabber.’ You're not letting him blabber. What do you think of yourself? Do you think you will remain untouched, unaffected, uncorrupted by all this that is entering your ears? Not at all.
Your passive participation is turning your life into a massive stink. And you think you are so smart. You think you are not participating, you are just letting her or him urinate in your ears. That ringing phone was yours, Gagan, right? (referring to a listener) That's how they urinate right into your ears. We need ‘avidya’. Understand the world and understand the mind. World and the mind are covered in ‘avidya’. And that which is at the center of the mind, the ego self, that disappears through ‘vidya’. Is it clear? What forms the content of the mind? The world and your self-concept. Both of these are addressed in the domain of ‘avidya’. And that which is at the center of the mind, the ‘I’, that gets deleted in the process of vidya and then what remains is the real you, the real you without you.
