Knowledge is a state of knowing. If I say this is a clock, I understand the purpose of the clock, viz., to know time. I apprehend the shape and function of the clock in recognizing its purpose and of course I know what time is!!
The state of “not knowing” is ignorance. When I don’t know what the word “clock” means, when I don’t know the numeric display digitally or the movement of the 2 arms to represent time and I have no concept called time, I am fascinated by this wonder device an object of amusement which gives me a thrill in holding and possessing it. This is ignorance and its effect. This phenomenon is best seen when a child plays with a time piece.
The Vedas use a simple example to illustrate the outcome of a state of mind in of a person in ignorance. A man was walking in the dark. He felt something dangling on his shoulders. Terror struck he ran from the place shouting “snake, snake”. On reaching the village he panted and between bated breaths he shouted “snake”. The people looked at him and asked “Where? Did it bite you? Are you alright?” He looks alright but he exhibits a state of fear and pain. He babbles something and urges everyone to take fire and sticks and to go back and kill it. Bewildered everyone does so and go along with him to the place.
At the place where he “felt” the snake, on closer inspection in the brightness of light now present due to the fire, he comes to recognize the snake which he imagined and misunderstood to be a snake was only a rope hanging from a tree. Due to his movement the rope was dangling on his shoulders. Not only did the person “not apprehend” the Truth that it was a rope, but also he “misinterpreted/misapprehended” the rope to be a snake as he did not “know” the Real nature of the rope in the dark. This is one illustration of a man in ignorance. “The misapprehension that occurs due to the non apprehension of Truth” is a definition that Swami Chinamayananda uses in Vivekachoodamani (Author Sri Adi Sankara).
The person did not investigate the rope properly. His ignorance drove him to an immediate “fear” and the mind added the attributes of a snake with a mouth, a slimy surface and hissing tongue for him to shout “snake”.
The Vedas have to be studied, investigated, tried and discussed with a Guru (who is a jnani) to be fully understood. The wise say that when there is a discrepancy in understanding the Puranas, the Vedas (Rig, Yajur...) should be referred. And if there is again a doubt the Upanishad should be referred for interpretation.
The Puranas themselves a part of the Caturdasa Vidya, come under a rigid supervision by a “higher” means of knowledge. What happens to a person who in his ignorance tries to understand the Puranas, the Vedas and the Upanishads by self effort without a first hand knowledge of the Supreme Truth that the Vedas talks about? There is a possibility of rejection of the Puranas as fancy and the Vedas as babble.
A child going to school is considered ignorant of the various sciences that are used in the world today. So the child is taught from language to mathematics to science so that the child may come to understand the Truth of the sciences and put the “knowledge” to a good use by exhibiting the skills that the child possesses. Similarly the Vedas also have to be studied in a gradual way from simple understanding to a logic based analysis that will be emphasized later. One can start the study of any subject at any point of time in the small life time that once possesses. But the studies of such subjects have also come to be as a process of gradual understanding over a period of time. Why then is there a rejection of the Vedas? No subject can yield its secret the moment it is touched. It has to be studied, understood and has to be put to practice. Only than the knowledge acquired is called first hand knowledge.
Ignorance of the subject will lead to a criticism if the subject and its study will not bear the fruits that it should. The study of the Vedas should be under a Guru as much as the study of any science is under a professor.
Hence the wise say “learn under the constant vigilance of a Guru who is none other than Lord Dakshinamurthy himself.”
