Vichara Eats Away Ignorance

Sage Vasishtha

O Rama, I shall now narrate to you how this creeper known as ignorance creeps in all directions. This creeper flourishes in the forest of world appearance and it is rooted in the mountain of consciousness. The three worlds are its body; and the entire universe is its skin. Pleasure and pain, being and non-being, wisdom and ignorance are its roots and fruits. When that ignorance entertains the notion of pleasure, pleasure is experienced; when it entertains the notion of pain, pain is experienced. When the notion of being prevails, there is being; when the notion of non-being prevails, there is non-being. That ignorance expands by means of ignorance, and yields greater ignorance; when it seeks wisdom, it feeds on wisdom and grows into wisdom in the end. 

This creeper of ignorance is made manifest in its various pastime and psychological states or moods. Somewhere sometime it falls on (comes into contact with) wisdom and is purified. But it gets attached again. It is the source of all emotion and sense experiences. Its sap is the memory of past experiences. Vichara or enquiry into the nature of the self is the termite that eats it away. The stars and the planets that shine in the firmament are the flowers of this creeper. 

This creeper is shaken by the mind. It is resorted to by the birds of notions. The deadly snakes of the senses encircle it. The python of prohibited action dwells in it. It is illumined by the light of heaven. It is filled with the livelihood of living beings. It contains other things too: all those things that delude the foolish, all those things that promote wisdom, and an infinite variety of living beings. In it are they who are born, who are about to be born, who are dead, and who are about to die. It is sometimes partially severed; it is elsewhere completely uncut (in the case of the totally immature persons); but it is impossible to destroy it altogether. The past, present and future are in it. It is a deadly creeper which makes one senseless; but it dies when it is resolutely examined. 

This creeper itself is manifest as all these: the stars and the planets, the living being, the plants, the elements, heaven and earth, the gods as well as the worms and vermin. Whatever there is in this universe is pervaded by this ignorance. When it is transcended you will attain self-knowledge.