November 28, 2025
udetyavidyā vidyāyāḥ salilādiva budbudaḥ
vidyāyāṁ līyate ‘vidyā payasīva hi budbudaḥ (16)
RĀMA asked:
Lord, I am puzzled by your statement that even the gods like Viṣṇu and Śiva are part of this ignorance or avidyā. Pray explain that statement further.
VASIṢṬHA replied:
The truth or existence-consciousness-bliss absolute is beyond thought and understanding, it is supreme peace and omnipresent, it transcends imagination and description. There arises naturally in it the faculty of conceptualisation. This self-understanding is considered to be threefold: subtle, middling and gross. The intellect that comprehends these three regards them as satva, rajas and tamas. The three together constitute what is known as prakṛti or nature. Avidyā or ignorance is prakṛti or nature, and it is threefold. This is the source of all beings; beyond it is the supreme.
These three qualities of nature (satva, rajas and tamas) are subdivided again into three each, i.e., the subtle, middling and gross of each of these. Thus you have nine categories. These nine qualities constitute the entire universe.
The sages, the ascetics, the perfected ones, the dwellers of the nether world, the celestials, the gods — these are the sātvic part of ignorance. Among these the celestials and the dwellers of the nether world form the gross (tamas), the sages form the middling (rajas) and the gods Viṣṇu, Śiva, etc., form the sātvic part. They who come under the category of satva are not born again: hence they are considered liberated. They exist as long as this world lasts. The others (like the sages) who are liberated while living (jīvanmukta) shed their body in course of time, reach the abode of the gods, dwell there during the period of the existence of the world and then they are liberated. Thus this part of avidyā or ignorance has become vidyā or self-knowledge! Avidyā arises in vidyā just as ripples arise in the ocean; and avidyā dissolves in vidyā just as ripples dissolve in the water.
The distinction between the ripples and the water is unreal and verbal. Even so, the distinction between ignorance and knowledge is unreal and verbal. There is neither ignorance here nor even knowledge! When you cease to see knowledge and ignorance as two distinct entities, what exists, that alone exists. The reflection of vidyā in itself is considered avidyā. When these two notions are abandoned what remains is the truth: it may be something or it may be nothing! It is omnipotent, it is more empty than space and yet it is not empty because it is full of consciousness. Like the space within a pot, it is indestructible and everywhere. It is the reality in all things. Just as a magnet makes iron filings move by its very presence, it causes cosmic motion, without intending to do so. Hence, it is said that it does nothing at all.