Gita 18.22 Knowledge in ignorance makes us obsessed with one fragment of reality and one kind of action

Transcript

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bhagavad gita 18.22 yad tu kuchhna vadehikasmin karyesattam ahetukam atatvarthavadalpam chyatattamasamudaharitam krishna is talking about knowledge in the mode of ignorance and he speaks over here yad tu kuchhna vadehikasmin kuchhna vadehikasmin means everything ekasmin when one thinks of one thing to be everything karyesattam ahetukam and one becomes attached to one kind of work atatvarthavadalpam chyattamasamudaharitam ahetukam one doesn’t understand the principle of cause and effect properly atatvarthavadalpam chyattamasamudaharitam one doesn’t understand the truth, the reality, the big picture alpam chyam it is a meager knowledge that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance for all of us we all need to seek knowledge for functioning effectively in the world even if somebody is a farmer the farmer has to have the knowledge of which grains to sow in which season what all to have in order to protect the crops from predators or fleas or other kinds of attacks what weather symptoms indicate what kind of weather so in driving we need knowledge of road signals like that for all of us when we work in a particular field we get certain knowledge and that knowledge helps us to function in that field now a farmer because of farming expertise will not think that I have spiritual knowledge or I have medical knowledge of how to treat myself when I get a disease now the farmer may have by experience got that knowledge also sometimes the grandmother has many herbal cures or traditional cures and they may work also but that knowledge has come traditionally through the family farming knowledge is not medical knowledge especially not medical for human beings so this categorization of knowledge in different categories is important to recognize so that we don’t presume expertise in one field as equivalent to expertise in all fields yattu kuchna var ekashmin means knowledge in the mode of ignorance wherein one equates knowledge of one field to be the knowledge of everything ideally speaking knowledge and ignorance are opposite technically or conceptually speaking but knowledge in the mode of ignorance means there is knowledge but the mode of ignorance keeps us ignorant of the big picture in the mode of ignorance we pursue material reality and that too we pursue falsely incompletely at least possibly falsely also but that incomplete perception of material reality brings with it certain problems and those problems need to be dealt with practically and the way to deal with them are also both having principles and practices within that so when we make knowledge of one field to be everything that leads to problems so that knowledge in the mode of ignorance means we acquire knowledge of our particular field but we stay ignorant of the big picture and still we think we are in knowledge so one such field which is hugely influential today we could call as scientism scientism is the ideology science is a tool for acquiring knowledge but scientism is the ideology that actually is not scientific although it derives its prestige from science it is parasitic on science it claims that science alone can provide us all knowledge and nothing else can provide us any knowledge apart from science so science actually looks for natural phenomena and natural explanations of natural phenomena and even in natural phenomena science focuses on what it calls as primary qualities which are measurable qualities so emotions and consciousness which are at their core immeasurable are left out by science as is the whole spiritual arena of existence so if we consider one becomes attached to one kind of action one becomes attached to one kind of action the purpose of scientific knowledge is to align nature to human will the purpose of spiritual knowledge in contrast is to align human will to God by the end of the Bhagavad Gita we see that Arjuna surrenders to Krishna saying I will do your will so it is aligning human will with God whereas when science studies nature its purpose is to understand the mechanisms of nature so that we can tap those mechanisms and so that we can make nature bend to human will because the purpose is different so science is basically an interaction between human intelligence and nature and because the purpose is also to try to get nature under control so there is not much acknowledgement of any force bigger than the human which cannot be brought under control which cannot be observed through control experiments today we see more and more technology is being developed and all of it promises us more and more control the more control we get the more control we crave and then even a little lack of control makes us inordinately disturbed the hope and the hype that we can become controllers which is fueled through technological advancement also results in people becoming excessively mentally disturbed when they find that they are not able to control things in their life control of technology does not mean automatically control of mentality so knowledge in the world of ignorance one becomes irrationally attached without considering the big picture to coming up with means to control matter, control nature even if we succeed in controlling one aspect of nature there is often a delicate balance in the ecosystem and our intervention in one aspect of the ecosystem may create reactions that we had not at all foreseen so knowledge in ignorance means knowledge which fuels our ignorance irrespective of whether the factual information is correct or not even if the factual information is correct even if say chemical A when it reacts with chemical B leads to a chemical C as predicted so that does not necessarily prove that knowledge is anything higher than knowledge in the mode of ignorance because that knowledge may well still be used even if it is precise and it will be precisely used for worldly for demon antelites and if one wants to avoid them one has to be very determined to fight on through thick and thin and knowledge in the mode of ignorance actually keeps us in ignorance so we had better come out of this knowledge and come to the mode of goodness that means we see that soul is different from the body and the person is different from the physical profile, biological profile general profile, whatever it may be so reductionism is the essential characteristic of the mode of ignorance and knowledge in the mode of ignorance reduces human beings to one of their specific attributes but if we cultivate goodness then we can see people in their holistic nature Thank you