Jnana Burns Karma

Sri Tandavaraya Swami

Disciple: O Master of crystal clear wisdom! The stain on a shining mirror can be removed only by rubbing it. Or has anyone made it stainless by knowledge only? Similarly the dirt of ignorance should be removed by karma. How can it be done away with by knowledge which is only mental?

Master: Son! The stain on a metallic mirror is material and also natural to it. But the black is not natural to the crystal (quartz). It is only superimposed on it. Appropriate work is doubtless necessary to remove the stain on the mirror. But to know that the black is a superimposition on the crystal, the mind alone will succeed. Here also, non-being, insentience and misery are all superimposed on Being-Consciousness-Bliss by maya. They are neither natural nor real. The series of karma does not conflict with avidya though it is perishable. On the contrary, it nourishes it. Jnana is the fire which burns away karma and ignorance.

A man who has forgotten where he left his things in the house cannot recover them by weeping even for a hundred years. But he will get them only if he thinks the matter over and finds out. The Self is realized directly by knowledge which destroys forgetfulness (ignorance), the root cause of all misery, but it cannot be realized by any amount of hard work, though extended over several eons.

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Just as a well-kindled fire reduces a heap of fire-wood to ashes, so does the fire of divine knowledge reduce all sins to ashes. - Srimad Bhagavad Gita