Defining Vidya

The Advaitha Vedantha says that it is vidya (wisdom) alone that is capable to remove Maya. But the question that remains is, what exactly is the nature of vidya that is capable of removing Maya. Nobody can be happy with Maya because it creates only chaos and confusion. Therefore happiness can be attained only when one is capable of removing Maya. The removal of Maya can be attained only by the possession of right knowledge. In this sense, it is true to say that it is the knowledge that makes us free. What is the knowledge that makes us free is a question to be answered by one and all because each one wants to enjoy happiness. The answer to the question need not be identical because each one is capable to find out a contextual answer. There is nothing wrong in conceiving that the knowledge that makes us free is the knowledge that can be acquired through the sense organs and mind. The sense organs and mind reveals only a changing reality. Advaitha Vedanta believes that the changing reality is only a ladder to the unchanging reality. Otherwise, they justify, that one cannot be able to know the change. The unchanging reality that has been signified by the changing signs is known as the truth or ‘Brahman’. Brahman is the knowledge that liberates us from the changing world of chaos and confusion. Is the changing world different from the unchanging Brahman? All the efforts of the Upanishadic Rishis ⃰ were to find out a logically consistent and practically viable answer to the question. The most common element of the answers given by them is that the world and the Brahman is non-dualistic. As in the case of a human being having a body consisting of sense organs, motor organs, internal organs, external skin, manas (mind) and something more than them i.e the ‘Atman’ ⃰ ⃰ are functioning as a non-dualistic entity. It does not mean that Brahman is the inner essence alone of this entity but it is the entity itself. Any knowledge about the world cannot be discarded as non-existing because whatever we have acquired as knowledge has been direct outcome of one’s own experiences. In order to explain the relation between the world and the Brahman, advaitiyans ⃰ ⃰ ⃰ used ‘rope’ like experience as a parable. In a dim light, a piece of rope has been experienced as snake and later within the presence of sufficient light the same thing has been experienced as rope. In this parable, the person who experiences snake instead of a piece of rope really experiences snake because his body and mind react as if it has been a snake, not a rope. This shows that the experience of a snake instead of a rope can never be discarded naming it an illusory.