SAIVA-SIDDHANTA

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150 A CHAPTER FROM THE RURAL.
consists in mistaking one existent thing as the shell, for another existent
thing as silver. To him, to know the truth,
is to understand the true
nature of each one thing. The question of reality or unreality does not
come in. Only one must not mistake one thing for the other or doubt its
nature. It will be sufficient requirement of the definition, if one under
stands the true nature of /God
and man and the world, and one need not
beleive any of these to be unreal. One of such truths is that birth is
sorrowful This can be proved to be true. But one s ignorance or
delusion comes when one takes this actual sorrow as happiness. You thvik
that with this body, there is an end altogether when in fact there are
future births. Believing that there is no future life and future birth, one
does not believe that there can be a soul; and if there is one, one thinks the
body itself is the soul and believing so, all one s energies in this world are
directed solely towards what would procure the greatest pleasure and
gratification of one s senses, and one does not care what means one adopts
provided one s passions are gratified. As it is, the whole foundation of
will be undermined and one need have neither fear of men nor of
morality
God. All this is the result of want of knowledge of the true nature of his
body and himself, and this ignorance
is the cause of his birth. This
ignorance is a fact, and to believe that this ignorance
is itself unreal will
be error or false knowledge. It is only when a man knows that he is
ignorant, that he will learn and try to remove his ignorance. But can this
ignorance be removed ? Yes. If so, how ? This question
is answered
in the next couplet.
2.
Darkness departs and rapture springs to men who see
The mystic vision pure from all delusion free.
PARIMELALAGAR S
COMMENTARY.
@(5^r, darkness is hell. The mystic vision pure
is the
supreme object of knowledge. By this couplet is explained that
by freedom is meant Niratisayandnda and the Nimitta Karana,
for this, the Supreme Being.
NOTE.
Darkness and ignorance, Light and knowledge have at all times and in
all climes been used synonymously and no two things are so analogous in