1. When we speak about ignorance, we can do so in two ways.

One is by
talking about 'how the world is'; the other is by talking about 'how we think
the world is'. Even though we could use both ways to characterize
'ignorance', they are not coextensive (or synonyms) because (a) they are
about different things in the first case it is about the world; in the second
case it is about what we take to exist in the world and, therefore, (b)
they have different consequences.
Let me illustrate this difference by taking up the snake-rope metaphor.
The first way says how the world is: 'there is a rope on the path. The
second talks about what we take to exist in the world: she believed that
there was a snake on the path'. What caused the person to shudder? Her
belief that there was a snake on the path. This distinction is easily
understood in this case because we are able to neatly partition the two
halves: what there is in the world and what we believe to exist in the
world.
2.

Our problem begins when we go to the next stage of questioning: how do

we explain our reactions in the world? Let us use the snake-rope metaphor
again: (i) she did not at all know what was there on the path; (ii) she did
not know that there was a rope was on the path; (iii) she believed that a
snake was on the path. However, why shudder? The fact that she did not
at all know what was there on the path does not explain the event of
shuddering: if you do not know what there is, you do not shudder
(assuming some facts about human psychology). Neither does the second
possibility explain: if you do not know that a rope was on the path, you do
not shudder either. However, provided we know that she shuddered, we
can look elsewhere for an explanation for the shudder. If we do not at all
know how the person reacted, then the sentence (she did not know there
was a rope on the path) appears incomplete: why talk about what she did
not know? For this sentence to be complete, we need to know how the
person responded. If we know this, and also know what there is in the
world, then the second possibility functions as a heuristic in looking for
explanations. Like all heuristics, this sentence appeals to what we assume
to be true about human psychology.
So, the first possibility, namely she did not know what was there on the
path, merely tells us what she did not know. However, this sentence
cannot explain anything, even if we knew how the person reacted. Nor
does it tell us where to look for an explanation. If we are merely told that
the person did not know what was on the path and that the person
shuddered, we can come up with any explanation: the person might have
suddenly felt chilly; the person might have remembered some incident; the
person might have seen a ghost; and so on. Assuming that a person was
walking on the path, the sentence takes the following form: she shuddered
and did not know what was on the path. Could we say she shuddered
because of the ignorance of what was on the path? We cannot: to say this,
we have to further assume that the shudder had to do with what was there

on the path. But this is merely an assumption on our part; we do not know
this to be true. So all we can do is take the sentence at its face value and
let the conjunction (and) function purely linguistically: the person did not
know what was on the path and he shuddered.
In the second case, by telling us what was there on the path, namely a
rope, and telling us that the person did not know this, the sentence
suggests that we need to relate the shudder to something on the path.
That is to say, the second possibility tells us more. It tells us that the
response has something to do with what was on the path, viz., a rope and
that it has also something to do with the ignorance of the person about
that fact. If we draw upon our knowledge of human psychology to explain
the shudder, then we can begin formulating the problem: what could
appear like a rope and cause a shudder in a human being? In this sense,
this sentence forces us to look for something else that explains the
shudder and puts some minimal constraints on what that explanation
should look like. But this constraint is minimal: it merely allows us to
assume that the fact that he does not know the truth about the world has
something to do with his response. However, neither of the two explains
on its own in the sense that we need to add additional premises, if we have
to explain the shudder. This is what 'ignorance' is: absence of knowledge.
However, there is an interesting difference between these two cases. In
the first case, ignorance, or absence of knowledge, is with respect to what
there is in the world. Were we to know how we react in the world and also
know which aspect of the world we react to, even then, we cannot choose
between the different explanations as to why we react the way we do. We
would also not know where to look for that right explanation. We know
that the person shuddered and we also know that the person did not know
what was on the path. But it is not clear whether the person reacted to
something on the path and what, if any, her ignorance (or absence of
knowledge) about that aspect of the world had to do with the act of
shuddering. In other words, the mere fact of ignorance about some aspect
of the world and our responses in the world does not tell us what, if any, is
the relationship between some aspect of the world and our responses to it.
We would suspect that there is a problem to be solved (or that we should
provide an explanation) without knowing what precisely that problem is.
We get an ill-defined problem where we have to answer questions about
our reactions. Our ignorance about some aspect of the world does not
even contribute to defining the problem-situation. That is to say, our
problem becomes one of explaining why some person shudders. That
persons lack of knowledge about what there was on the path merely tells
us where that incident took place; it is not even obvious that the path has
anything to do with the event of shuddering.
With respect to suffering, this possibility is akin to the following: you are
suffering and you do not know the nature and structure of the Cosmos. It
might be the case they are related; it might be the case they are

unrelated. All you have on your hands is the following: why are you
suffering? We do not know where to look for the answer.
The second case narrows our field of search. It tells us that we are ignorant
of some specific fact about some specific aspect of the world. Or it
characterizes our ignorance as an absence of some specific knowledge
item. It circumscribes our ignorance in terms of the truth about the world:
the world is structured in some way (there is a rope on the path) and
that we are ignorant of this structure. Because of this circumscription, this
functions as a heuristic. It tells us to draw upon the knowledge we already
have about the relevant aspects of the world (our ideas about human
psychology) to frame the problem. It does not explain or solve the problem
of the shudder but it tells you about the likely place you have to search in,
if you want a solution.
With respect to suffering, the above takes the following form: you are
suffering because you do not know things are transient and impermanent.
We can appreciate why this puts only minimal constraints on our
explanation because we can easily imagine a response that goes as
follows: of course, I know things are transient and impermanent; that is
why I lost my wife to death. Hence the reason for my suffering . We can
also imagine an analogous response with respect to our metaphor: of
course I know that it is a rope; that is why I shudder; the rope makes me
think of the gallows. In other words, even if we were to supplant
ignorance of some particular fact with knowledge about the same, our
explanation could turn out to be wrong. We need to further assume that
the assumptions we make about human psychology also hold true in
particular cases.
3.

She shudders because she thinks there is a snake. Now, if we know the
structure of the world (or believe we know it), we can characterize this is a
false belief. There are two important things to note here. First: the belief
might be false, but she believes that it is true (at that moment). That is to
say, the presence of this belief and assumption she makes about its truth
are required to explain why she shudders. Second: one can say that this
belief is false provided we know either (a) there could have been no snake
there or (b) there was a rope. This either/or is not the same: in one case we
know that there could be no snake (even if we do not know what else was
there); in the other we know what there is.

4. In the snake-rope metaphor, the absence of knowledge does not/cannot

explain the shudder; false belief does. This is the point I have been
repeatedly making. Indeed, one of the explanations for suffering in the
world is the set of (false) beliefs which we entertain because we think they
are true: the 'I' is the body, the mind, wealth, power, status, etc.
5. When I speak of 'ignorance' conceived negatively, I have the 'absence of
knowledge' mind. I say that this does not explain suffering (any more than
it explains the shudder in the snake-rope metaphor). However, when I want

to speak of "ignorance conceived as a positive force", I want to talk of

something entirely different. I am trying to answer the following question:
why do people, across generations and cultures, come to have the same
sets of commonsense beliefs about who they are? I mean to ask: why is it
that every human being (more or less) learns that the 'I' is the body, the
mind, wealth, power, status? This question opens up a hornets nest. Let
me outline some of the issues.
6. In the first place, we have to describe a learning process as something that
produces false beliefs about the nature of the I. In some senses, there is
something strange about coupling a learning process with the production
of false beliefs. In our language-use, we speak of knowledge as the product
of a learning process. That is to say, we tend to speak of learning only
when such a process leads to knowledge acquisition. Even though unclear
about what the relationship between truth and knowledge is, we relate
knowledge to truth and not to falsity. At the minimum, we do not say that
some sets of sentences are false and thus knowledge. In this sense,
there is the problem of making sense of a learning process that produces
false beliefs even if the object under question is the I.
One way of solving this problem is to suggest that we constantly formulate
hypotheses about the world to account for what we see and do. Then we
have a situation where we make best guesses about the world (our
hypotheses), which we entertain only as long as they are not proved false
or better ones do not come along. Instead of speaking about how
knowledgeable we are, we can only speak about how ignorant we are.
Truth becomes the end-goal of our hypothesis production. In this case, we
can speak about learning as an act of hypothesis generation.
7. Whether we take this route or not, there is a second notable problem. To
what should we appeal in order to explain why all people come up with the
same (or similar) hypothesis regarding the I? One of the strategies used
in the natural sciences is the following: postulate a new hypothesis about
the same phenomenon and show how (minimally) the earlier hypothesis
and its consequences are derivable from the new hypothesis. Formulated
differently: make a distinction between appearance and reality and show
that the nature of reality generates the structure of the appearance. For
instance: we believed in the geocentric nature of the solar system. By
relegating it to the world of appearance, the reality was shown to be the
heliocentric in nature. The appearance (movement) of the sun became a
necessary consequence that required an explanation.
If we take the Indian insights into the nature of the I seriously, we see
that this approach will not work. The reality of the I does not in any sense
cause the illusion that the I is the body, the mind, agency, wealth, power,
or whatever else. Consequently, we are forced to rethink the relationship
between how we experience the I and the nature of the I. Our

experiences of the I are not the appearances; the true I is not the reality
hidden behind the appearances.
If this is the case, enlightenment is not a movement that traces the effects
to their cause. We cannot describe the experience of the I as a logical
consequence of the structure of the I. These two belong to different
realms or levels without a causal or a logical relationship between them.
Nevertheless, it is possible to move from the level of experience to the
other level.
Thus, the Indian traditions cannot possibly claim that our experiential
world is an illusion, underlying which there is the real world. Therefore,
Maaya cannot be an illusion and unreal. In so far as Maaya is
responsible for our daily experiences in the world, if anything, Maaya
would be real and be a cause of our experiential world. This brings us to
the next problem.
8. We have now two sets of questions. One pertains to the generation of false
beliefs about the I; the second is about the nature of reality. Let us begin
with the first one. Maaya is itself the learning process or the learning
process is an element (or a component) of Maaya. The learning process
generates certain false beliefs about the world. Either this learning process
itself is Maaya or, other things, components of Maaya, contribute to the
generation and fixation (or reproduction) of these false beliefs. Let us work
with this hypothesis for some time and turn our attention to the second set
of questions.
Maaya is real (because it exists) and so are its effects. The I is also real.
So, either we talk about two realities, the false reality and the true
reality or we say that existence and reality do not coincide: what exists
is not real just because it exists. So, we have to say, Maaya exists; so do
its effects. But neither is real. Quite apart from saying what reality and
existence mean in this context, we are confronted by yet another weighty
problem: that of truth.
9. Consider our commonsense notion of truth, often called the Aristotelian
concept of truth, which says that truth is to describe what is there as it is
there. For the moment, let us accept the idea that truth is a linguistic
property of statements. That is to say, let us agree that we can speak
sensibly about whether or not some sentence is true. If we accept this
convention, we can say the following: the statements that describe
existence are true; the statements that describe the real are also true.
That is, it is true that the I is body etc because this I exists; it is also true
that I is not body etc. because this I is real. Some statement about the I
is either true or false depending on what it describes: whether it describes
what exists or whether it describes what is real. (We need to keep in mind
that both what exists and what is real can be experienced.) We can avoid
the problem of speaking about two kinds of truth, the conventional truth

and the Adhyatmic truth, by distinguishing between what exists and what
is real.
10.However, many Indian traditions also use the predicate truth to
characterize what is real. The real is what is permanent, unchanging and
unconditioned. It is rather tempting to suggest that such ideas about the
real are derivative of our linguistic intuitions about the nature of truth: a
true statement remains true under all circumstances; a true statement
does not become false; and so on. If we go in this direction, we can
understand why the Indian traditions claim that the real is permanent,
unchanging and unconditioned: they have simply projected the linguistic
intuitions about truth onto the world. We can also show that logic and
philosophy has progressed since then because we are able to retain these
linguistic intuitions without having to speak about the world in these terms.
Furthermore, we can also give up the distinction between reality and
existence. Our ontologies take on manageable forms.
11.Though tempting, the above route faces two kinds of difficulties. The first
involves some of the assumptions it makes: (a) with respect to the Indian
thinkers, we have made progress in the area they were busy with; (b) the
problems of contemporary philosophy and that of the Indian thinkers are
the same; (c) our language-use almost completely determines our
experiences; (d) the experiences of the Indian thinkers require no further
explanation than that they were mistaken; and so on.
The second kind of difficulties has to do with what it cannot explain
satisfactorily. (a) Why do the idea and the process of a search for truth
resonate so deeply in the Indian traditions? (b) Why downsize the
possibility that the Indian thinkers were busy in making sense of
experience? (c) Why should there not be an experience of the real I? (d)
How to make sense of the experience of those many Gurus who also talk in
terms similar to those from yesteryears? And so on.
12.This lengthy digression had to do with the hornets nest of philosophical
problems opened up by an earlier suggestion (in point 5): why is it that
every human being (more or less) learns that the 'I' is the body, the mind,
wealth, power, status? Answering this question in a satisfactory way
requires a hypothesis that is powerful enough to suggest answers also to
some of the problems mentioned above.
13. Currently, I am working with a hypothesis which includes the two notions
of ignorance that the Indian traditions talk about. The first looks at
Ignorance as the absence of knowledge (see point 3). This kind of
ignorance is a precondition for knowledge. We want to have knowledge
precisely because we are ignorant.
14.Then, there is ignorance conceived as a learning process. This learning
process is a hindrance to knowledge because it continually generates false
beliefs about the world. The point to note here is not merely the fact that

we have false beliefs. If that is all there is to it, reading a Buddha or a

Shankara would be sufficient to dispel all such beliefs and enlighten us.
However, this happens rarely, if at all. We do not get enlightened by
merely reading either the Buddha or the Upanishads because such
readings do not interfere with the learning process that generates false
beliefs. As long as this process continues to function, it reproduces and
sustains our false beliefs. To be sure, the Indian traditions often speak
about false beliefs, which knowledge dispels: they use several analogies
like the sun and the mist, the light and darkness, and so on to illustrate
this point. In that case, we can consistently talk about ignorance in terms
of beliefs alone: the absence of beliefs about some object and the
presence of false beliefs about the same object. While this would be
convenient, it could also makes us forget the more important question:
why is there a necessity for false beliefs, i.e., why do all of us succumb to
false beliefs so easily? In order not to lose this focus, I speak about
ignorance as a learning process.