Ignorance is a lack of clarity. It is not something, it is its absence. Just as darkness is the absence of light, so too is ignorance the absence of clarity. And just as a shadow obscures seeing, so too does ignorance obscure understanding. The light we want is the literal light of consciousness.
As I wrote prior, Yoga defines ignorance as seeing self and reality incorrectly. They are shadowed leading to incorrect conclusions about who I am and what the world is.
The light of awareness brings clarity.
Davidya
Last Updated on June 16, 2016 by
Yes, it is so very odd as an incomplete survival mechanism, that the clouds with light, or diffuse light or even darkness, can all be made whole, by the manager of our self-awareness, the ego. So a rather incomplete view can be seen as everything, the full range of life, though actually a distortion, a mistaken view.
This blindness to the development of consciousness as fundamental to ourselves and the world we inhabit, makes reality more a matter of assertion than anything else. A story glued together by the ego, but lacking the satisfaction of reality.
Again so very odd (and wonderful) that even though we can allow ourselves to stitch a reality together through attachment, Reality itself provides a path in the midst of it all that is true and instinctive to all of us, always finding us, no matter where we might find ourselves.
Thanks for another clear and compelling post – more fun than a crossword puzzle!
Hi Jim
This carefully constructed story serves as our sense of self and security so can be emphatically defended. Very real to the person who does not want to see it’s mistaken.
But yes, that path is there if we’re willing to look.
Wonderful post! Thought provoking!
Although, I must say, Davidya, this wrought havoc on my time management for today. I wound up dropping everything to write a related blog post. (Haha)
Thanks, Rose. You raise an excellent point. While ignorance isn’t something, there is something that can be healed to help clear it up.
We can use the analogy of clouds. Clouds are water vapour, like the misting on the bathroom mirror. Pretty ephemeral. And yet, if there’s enough of it, it can obscure the light of the sun leading to darkness and storms.
To clear the clouds, we can raise the light and burn them off. Or we can “heal” the clouds more directly by clearing the energetic baggage we carry.
To me, the most ideal is to engage both. Samadhi to raise the light and quality energy healing to resolve the clouds. Then the light of life will shine clearly.
Just FYI, this is a different use of “light of consciousness” (or awareness) than I have seen elsewhere.
For example, Mark S.G. Dyczkowski states that the light of consciousness is intrinsically involved in the process of … ignorance. He states: “The light of consciousness, full to overflowing with innumerable phenomena, thus separates some of them from itself, while at the same time limiting its own nature to appear as the individual (mayiya) subject set apart from the object. Perception takes place when this limited subject is affected by the ‘shade’ (chaya) cast upon it by the object.” ” [The ego] … arises from the mistaken notion that the light of consciousness reflected in the intellect and coloured by objectively perceived phenomenon is the true nature of the Self. Thus, the personal ego falsely identifies the Self with that which is not the Self and vice versa.”
In other words, as Maharishi has said, “Everything is perfect” which even includes ignorance, which is, of course, created by God.
Hi Ken
To be clear, the “light of consciousness” is a way of describing one way it’s experienced to the senses. We can literally see consciousness from it’s effulgence, an effect of it’s lively quality.
That same lively quality is experienced as the bliss of consciousness on that layer of our being. And it’s experienced as prana and the flow of life energetically. Basically the same thing, experienced different ways.
Now – if you take the appearance of the world to be ignorance, we can see one way someone might say this light is ignorance. But thats misleading. As the quote outlines, it’s not the light itself that is ignorance, it’s identification with the “objectively perceived phenomenon” and confusing that with Self.
We can describe such phenomena as effects of the light but not the light itself. You’ll notice all the examples I gave where nonphysical.
I would disagree that the light or even the appearance of the world is the cause of ignorance. The very awake continue to experience a world – in fact some experience a lot more of it – such as the above examples. Ignorance is cause by the lack of light or clarity.
I used Yoga as a similar example here:
https://davidya.ca/2014/06/26/what-is-ignorance/
And I shared something of the process of seeing through this (through clarity/ Light) here:
https://davidya.ca/2008/12/16/the-end-of-ignorance/