[Advaita-l] The Nature of Ātmajñānam'

[Raghav Kumar Dwivedula]

Namaste Jaishankar ji
Thank you for sharing a lucid summary of your talk.

The fact that if avidyā is a case of jñānābhāva, the jñāna-vṛtti goes away
leading to jñānābhāva once again (implying saṁsāritvaṁ will continue), is
an inescapable consequence of jñānābhāva-vāda.

Om
Raghav

On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 at 3:30 PM, Jaishankar Narayanan via Advaita-l <
advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org> wrote:

> Namaste,
>
> Recently I was asked to give a talk on the topic 'Ajñāna as Jñāna-virodhi
> and the Nature of Ātmajñānam' as part of the 10th Aradhana Celebrations of
> my Guru Pujya Swami Dayandanda Saraswati ji. I am sharing an edited excerpt
> of the talk, focusing on the nature of knowledge, below for the benefit of
> mumukshus.
>
> with love and prayers,
> Jaishankar
>
> Knowledge as removal of covering
>
> Pujya Swami Dayandanda ji gave a talk to teachers about Guru. Guru is the
> one who dispels ignorance or he is the remover of ignorance. Swamiji said
> that the teacher does not really produce any new knowledge or give
> knowledge. Teacher is only removing ignorance. He gave the example of a
> sculptor. A sculptor when he sees the stone he is already seeing Krishna
> there and all he is doing is, he is removing whatever is covering Krishna
> and then Krishna manifests there. So, Pujya Swami ji used to give this
> sculptor analogy to show that basically knowledge is not produced but
> ajnāna alone is removed.
>
> Swamiji says that fact is already in the mind of the teacher. Whatever the
> guru already knows well he is the one which is communicated to the students
> who are covered by ignorance. So the idea here is all knowledge is already
> there in ishvara. All knowledge is already there and the same consciousness
> only is manifest in all the Upadhis also, as the witness. And all knowledge
> being there it should have been available to everybody, but it is not
> available, because of the covering. That's where the ignorance as a
> covering is very important.
>
> The very fact that we have to use our mind to know something points to the
> covering. So, the covering has to be removed. The mano-vritti brings an
> object to light by removing the cover of ajnāna.
>
> Ātmajñāna as Mano-vṛtti
>
> What Pujya Swami Dayandanda ji is saying can be seen in different places in
> the Bhashya also. First, we have to understand that this Advaita Jnānam or
> Atma Jnānam itself is a mano-vritti. In the Chandogya Sambandha Bhashya
> Bhāṣyakāra clearly says Advaita Jnānam is mano-vritti-mātram.  Upanishads
> are also saying manasā eva āptavyam and manasā eva anudraṣtavyam.
> Mano-vritti means it is mano-vikāra - It is a modification of the mind
> only. Any modification is a kārya.
>
> The mind itself if we consider as a karana for manovritti, like the clay is
> the kārana for a pot then each vritti can be considered as a mano-kārya.
> And our siddhānta is satkāryavāda. We say all effects of a cause are
> already potentially present in the cause. The cause manifesting as one
> particular effect is covering all other effects which are unmanifest in the
> cause. That means the mind is already there with the potential for every
> kind of vritti. The effort we are taking then is to manifest a particular
> vritti which is going to give us the Advaita Jnāna. If the possibility of
> that vritti is not there then nobody will even pursue the knowledge.
>
> Bhāṣyakāra gives this argument in the Bṛ Up. Ghata Bhāṣya. He says if the
> pot is not already there in clay potentially, nobody will even make an
> effort to make the pot. You already know that pot is potentially there in
> the clay, that's why we even make the effort for creating the pot out of
> the clay. Like that our mind is already potentially having the akhandākāra
> vritti. All we have to do is manifest it. Any other mano vritti is a
> covering / āvaraNa for the viveka-jnānam known as akhanda-ākāra-vritti.
>
> Ajñāna as Āvaraṇa in Bhagavad Gītā
>
> Bhagavān Krishna and Bhāṣyakāra are talking about ajnānam as an āvarana -
> ajnānena āvritam jnānam. Bhāṣyakāra says in the Bhāṣya of the Gita verse
> 5.15 that viveka-jnānam is covered. This also goes along with what our
> Pujya Swamji is saying. Already viveka-jnānam, atma-jnānam is there in
> Ishwara and in other gurus in the paramparā. It is already present. It is
> only covered for the ajnānis. Due to the covering of the viveka-jnānam they
> are all deluded - tena muhyanti jantavah.
>
> The viveka-jnānam is uncovered for the guru. So, the guru is able to
> communicate that. In the next verse Bhagavān says jnānena tu tad ajnānam
> eṣām nāṣitam ātmanah teṣām ādityavad jnānam prakāṣayati tat param. Here
> Bhāṣyakāra says this ajnāna by which everybody is covered, when it is
> destroyed by the viveka-jnāna the paramārtha tattva / svaroopa jnāna shines
> on everything, like even the sun shines.
>
> Mokshā has to be nitya
>
> If we say jnānam is newly created in jnāna-abhāva state then there will be
> a problem because the vritti jnānam itself is transient. It will go away in
> a kṣanam (refer Mandukya Bhashya 7 jñānasya dvaitanivṛtti-kṣaṇa-vyatirekeṇa
> kṣaṇāntarānavasthānāt, avasthāne vā anavasthā-prasaṅgād dvaitānivṛttiḥ). If
> the vritti-jnānam has gone away in a kṣanam then there is jnāna-abhāva
> again. Then again you will become a samsāri.  That is why Pujya Swami
> Dayandanda ji used to say ajnana is destroyed because once it is destroyed,
> destruction is permanent. So, Mokshā is nitya.
>
> The Timira Dṛṣṭānta (Cataract Analogy)
>
> In the Bhāṣya for Kathopaniṣad vākya manasā eva āptavyam Bhāṣyakāra says
> prāg ekatva vijnānād  ācharya āgama samskrtena manasā eva idam brahma
> ekarasam āptavyam - it has to be seen only by the mind which is matured
> enough and which is prepared by the teachings of the ācharya and āgama.
> Further he says yastu punaravidyātimiradṛṣṭiṃ na muñcati iha brahmaṇi
> nāneva paśyati – avidyā is compared to a timira here. Timira is like a
> cataract. This avidyā-timira Dṛṣṭānta clearly says that it is not
> ātma-svarupa, it is a doṣa which is there in the karana, instrument – a
> covering that can be removed.
>
> The Jñānī Can Claim Self-Knowledge (Atmajnāna)
>
> Further the pūrvapakṣa is that nobody can even claim they are a jnāni once
> they get jnānam. This is explicitly negated by the Kena Upaniṣad where the
> sishyā claims ‘manye viditam’. Bhāṣyakāra gives here very clearly how he
> arrived at that understanding - Having analysed whatever was said by the
> Veda and the teacher and also assimilating it, ascertaining it with tarka
> and making it his own anubhava, then he says manye aham atha idānim viditam
> brahma iti - brahman is known by me. In the Bṛhadaranyaka Upaniṣad too
> Vamadeva claims he is a jnāni. Similarly, Triṣanku in the Taittiriya
> Upaniṣad. The jnāni can claim that I know brahman and I am a jnāni - there
> is nothing wrong in that. Otherwise, one cannot even teach properly. If it
> is not your jnānam you will not be able to teach it.
>
> Knowledge will take place when taught by a Brahmabhūta Guru
>
> Further in the Kathopanishad 1.2.8 Bhashya, Acharya says ‘athavā procyamāna
> brahmātmabhūtena ācāryeṇa ananyatayā prokte ātmani agatiḥ
> anavabodho'parijñānam atra nāsti’ - when taught by an acharya who himself
> is ananya with brahman then there cannot be not understanding, there cannot
> be imprecise knowledge. To this hearer the knowledge about that Self does
> come as, 'I am that (Self)', just as it did in the case of the teacher.
> This is the idea. Whenever we attended Pujya Swami Dayandanda ji's class we
> can never say that we did not understand what Swamiji revealed to us. So,
> every sishyā is really a jnāni but whether one is able to own it up or not
> is a different thing. That may take some time.
>
> We were fortunate to be his disciples and can say with certainty that the
> above is true in his case. None of the disciples of Puja Swami Dayandanda
> ji can say they are not jnāni, not knowers of the truth of the Self,
> although they may be in different stages of assimilation of the knowledge
> and enjoyment of the fruits of knowledge. As Vidyaranya says at the end of
> the Triptideepa Prakaranam in his Panchadashi
>
> अहो शास्त्रम् अहो शास्त्रम् अहो गुरुः अहो गुरुः ।
> अहो ज्ञानम् अहो ज्ञानम् अहो सुखम् अहो सुखं ॥
> aho śāstram aho śāstram aho guruḥ aho guruḥ ।
> aho jñānam aho jñānam aho sukham aho sukhaṃ ॥
> Oh! Great are the scriptures!
> Oh! Great is the guru!
> Oh! Great is knowledge!
>
> Om Tat Sat
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