Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
The Hindus nearly all agree that this material life is occasioned by "avidya" or ignorance on the part of the soul of its own real nature and being, whereby it fails to recognize that this material life is "maya" or illusion.
So when a man lives the life of Avidya he is confined within his self. It is a spiritual sleep; his consciousness is not fully awake to the highest reality that surrounds him, therefore he knows not the reality of his own soul. When he attains Bodhi, i.e. the awakenment from the sleep of self to the perfection of consciousness, he becomes Buddha.
But the wise man knows that the paper of the banknote is all maya, and until it is given up to the bank it is futile. It is only avidya, our ignorance, that makes us believe that the separateness of our self like the paper of the banknote is precious in itself, and by acting on this belief our self is rendered valueless.
Nor can it be maintained that Brahman is related to action in so far as constituting the object of the action either of knowledge or of meditation; for scriptural texts deny its being an object in either of these senses. Up. Up. Up. Nor does this view imply that the sacred texts have no object at all; for it is their object to put an end to the view of difference springing from avidya.
This true nature of the Self, free from all avidya, which the text begins by presenting as an object to be attained, is thereupon declared to be the Self consisting of bliss. We hence conclude that the Self consisting of bliss is that same jiva-self which was at the outset pointed out as the Brahman to be attained.
Let it then be said that Nescience is the cause of the cognition of what is contrary to truth; such being the case, Maya which presents all false things different from Brahman as false, and thus is not the cause of wrong cognition on the part of Brahman, is not avidya.
Avidya constitutes the material cause of this entire false world; since for a false thing we must needs infer a false cause. For at the very moment of such consciousness knowledge exists; or if it does not exist there can be no consciousness of the absence of knowledge. To explain.
The arguments set forth previously also prove the impossibility of the fictitious existence of an individual soul considered as the abode of avidya, apart from Brahman considered as the abode of Maya.
And as Perception and the other means of proof, as well as that part of Scripture which refers to action and is based on the view of plurality, convey the notion of plurality, and as there is contradiction between plurality and absolute Unity, we form the conclusion that the idea of plurality arises through beginningless avidya, while absolute Unity alone is real.
But we assume a different Nescience for each soul; that soul whose Nescience is destroyed will be released, and that whose Nescience is not destroyed will remain in Bondage! You now argue on the assumption of a special avidya for each soul. But what about the distinction of souls implied therein? Is that distinction essential to the nature of the soul, or is it the figment of Nescience?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking