Ignorance and Wisdom

Divine Life Society Publication: Chapter 4 – What is Knowledge by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Consciousness refuses to be artificially and externally associated with anything outside it because, basically, yoga tells us that our being is infinite. It is not a finite dimension that we are seeking to achieve; it is an unlimited dimension that we are asking for. This is the reason why nothing that is given to us can make us happy. May the world be ours, but we are still unhappy, because we know that there are more things than this world. Finally, even if the whole universe is under our possession, we may be cut off by death, and we do not know what happens to us at that time. The fact that our psychophysical existence can be wiped out in a moment by operations which are beyond our control is also a feature which demonstrates the artificiality of the way in which we are living, and the non-yogic way in which people conduct themselves.

What is yoga, then? It is that sort of expanding the 'being' of our consciousness. It is not the expanding of the consciousness of possession of anything; it is not to become a rich person, and it is not to become a very important person in the world in the eyes of people. Nothing of the kind is yoga. It is to become important in a different sense altogether – 'important', because that which is 'not you' becomes 'you'. The anatman, as they call it – the not-self, or that which is not at all us – which is threatening us, and which we would like to subdue and make a part of ourselves, that ceases to be 'that which we have to deal with externally'. We are struggling, actually, with our own higher nature. All our struggles, finally, are struggles with our own selves. It is not a struggle with people, it is not a struggle with things or the world outside, because the people around, the things around, the world – all these things that we call by these names and terminologies – are areas where we ourselves will find ourselves one day or the other, because our jurisdiction exceeds the limit of the present location of our consciousness.

The Real is not ultimate in the sense of a distant or remote object. It is logically remote, but not physically remote. The distance that we feel between ourselves and that which we wish to achieve in yoga is logical, not geographical. It is as far away from us as the waking state is away from dream state. Dream and waking are not two different locations physically.

Therefore, inasmuch as the distance between our present consciousness and the state which yoga wishes to attain is only logical, and not physical, there is a great hope for us. It is in this sense that we say that Reality is immanent in every one of the degrees of its expression. It is immanent in the sense that there cannot be a real distance between the aim – the goal, the end – and the means. There is a distance, but that distance is not measurable mathematically by foot rulers or any kind of measuring rods. Thus, the distance between ignorance and wisdom is the distance between you and God. This is the distance between your present state of consciousness and that state which you are trying to attain in yoga.

Excerpts from: Ignorance and Wisdom - Chapter 4 – What is Knowledge by Sri Swami Krishnananda