2023-06-22 12:07:35 by ambuda-bot

This page has not been fully proofread.

xix
 
Now, how is this experienced (within the phenomenal)
ignorance to be overcome or destroyed? We know that
ignorance can be destroyed only by knowledge and by nothing
else. Activity may be necessary to acquire knowledge but it
cannot destroy ignorance. Only knowledge can do that. In
this case since absolute knowledge is eternal it is not to be
brought into being by activity, nor is there any question of
acquiring or achieving it, as it is held to be one's own svarupa,
Being. So all that is to be achieved is the destruction of the
hypothetical ignorance.
 
Again, what is the knowledge that can destroy it? It
cannot be pure awareness because that, as pure Being, is the
substratum, locus, or basis of everything including even the
hypothetical ignorance. Pure awareness is one only, without a
second and so there can be no ignorance for it to destroy. Also
being without a second it cannot perform the function of
destruction because a function, work, invariably presupposes a
subject and an object. Therefore the destruction of the hypo-
thetical ignorance can be only within the phenomenon by
functioning consciousness.
 
This functioning consciousness is thought, a function. of
the mind, a limited form of absolute consciousness delimited or
determined by ignorance. And it is with this only that the
hypothetical ignorance has to be destroyed.
 
Here it is necessary to refer briefly to the advaitin's idea of
the process of perceptional knowing which is the most direct
within the phenomenon. We have to remember, again, that
according to advaita, the cognizing mind, the faculty which is
the instrument of congnition and the congnized object are all
pure. Being-consciousness only, conditioned by ignorance as
apparently distinct entities, which, by their inter-relation, consti-
tute the process of knowing. So in this process, e.g., of visual
perception, the mind (antahkaraṇa) limited as the instrument of
perception goes out through the seat of the visual faculty to
make contact with the object to be perceived. Till the moment
of such contact the object is not known, so it is said to be