In the case of finite mortals, sighing and sobbing in ignorance, the Self is screened off from them by lifeless walls of nescience (Avidya). The man of realisation is one in whom Knowledge has lifted this veil of ignorance. Darkness is removed by Light not by degrees but instantaneously — however old the darkness may be and however thick its density. Similarly, in one who has Knowledge (Jnana) of the Self, the beginningless ignorance is lifted and within a lightning flash, his ignorance ends. Ignorance creates the ego-centric concept and the ego thrives in the body, mind and intellect. With the end of ignorance, the ego too ends.
At this stage of Vedantic discussion, the dualists (Dwaitins) generally feel like collapsing in sheer despair. they fail to understand how the Self can be experienced when the experiencer, the ego and the instruments of experiencing, which are familiar to them in perception, feeling and thinking, have all ended. Any intelligent student must surely entertain this doubt. Foreseeing this possibility, Krishna is here trying to explain how, when the ego has ended, Knowledge becomes self-evident. This explanation cannot be brought so easily within the comprehension of a thinking intellect but by the example, which the Lord gives in the second line: “LIKE THE SUN.” It is the experience of all of us that, during the monsoon, we do not see the sun for days together, and we, in our hasty conclusions, cry out “the sun has been covered by clouds.”
When we reconsider this statement, it is not very difficult for us to understand that the sun cannot be covered by a tiny bit of a cloud. Also, the region of the cloud is far removed from the centre of the Universe where the sun, in its infinite glory, revels as the one-without-a-second. The minute humans observing from the surface of the globe with their tiny eyes, experience that the glorious orb of the sun is being veiled because of a wisp of cloud. Even a mighty mountain can be veiled from our vision if we put our tiny little finger very near our eyes!
Similarly, the ego (Jiva) looking up to the Atman finds that ignorance is enveloping the Infinite. This ignorance is not in Truth, just as the clouds are never in the sun. The finite ignorance is certainly a limited factor compared with the infinitude of Reality. And yet, the mist of Self-forgetfulness that hangs in the chambers of the heart gives the ego the false notion that the Spiritual Reality is enveloped by ignorance. When this ignorance is removed, the Self becomes manifest, just as when the cloud has moved away, the sun becomes manifest.
To see the sun, we need no other light; to experience the Self we need no other experience. The Self IS Awareness. It is Consciousness. To become conscious of Consciousness, we need no separate consciousness; to know knowledge we need no knowledge other than Knowledge; Knowledge is the very faculty of knowing. Similarly, when the ego rediscovers the Self, it becomes the Self.
When a dreamer has ended his dream-career along with his dream, he rediscovers himself to be the waker. The waker is never known or understood or recognised as an object by the dreamer. The dreamer himself transcends the dream-world and enters the realm of waking, wherein he knows himself to be the waker. In the same fashion, the deluded ego, when it walks out of ignorance and enters the realm of pure consciousness, it BECOMES the Consciousness which is the Atman. This relationship between the ego and the Atman, and the technique of rediscovery of the Atman by the ego, are beautifully described by this metaphor which is full of deep significance — for those who know how to chew upon it in independent thinking.
THE SAGE, WHOSE INTELLECT IS ABSORBED IN TRUTH, WILL HAVE NO MORE BIRTHS.
