Skip to main content

Ignorance is no excuse

At present everyone is suffering due to ignorance, just as one contracts a disease out of ignorance. If one does not know hygienic principles, he will not know what will contaminate him. Therefore due to ignorance there is infection, and we suffer from disease. A criminal may say, "I did not know the law," but he will not be excused if he commits a crime. Ignorance is no excuse. Similarly, a child, not knowing that fire will burn, will touch the fire. The fire does not think, "This is a child, and he does not know I will burn." No, there is no excuse. Just as there are state laws, there are also stringent laws of nature, and these laws will act despite our ignorance of them. If we do something wrong out of ignorance, we must suffer. This is the law. Whether the law is a state law or a law of nature, we risk suffering if we break it.

The guru's business is to see that no human being suffers in this material world. No one can claim that he is not suffering. That is not possible. In this material world, there are three kinds of suffering. These are miseries arising from the material body and mind, from other living entities, and from the forces of nature.

The guru sees that suffering is due to ignorance, which is compared to darkness. How can one in darkness be saved? By light. The guru takes the torchlight of knowledge and presents it before the living entity enveloped in darkness. That knowledge relieves him from the sufferings of the darkness of ignorance.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

திருவாரூர் Tiruvarur

Tiruvarur (Tamil: திருவாரூர் (tinuvānūr) (also spelt as Thiruvarur) is a town and a municipality in Tiruvarur district in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Tiruvarur is the administrative headquarters of Tiruvarur district. Tiruvarur is one of the oldest towns which has been popular as cultural head quarters for many centuries. This ancient town in Chola heartland is famous for its Sri Tyagaraja temple, as well as the annual chariot festival held in the month of April. Tiruvarur also happens to be the birth place of Tyagaraja, Muthuswami Dikshitar and Syama Sastri, popularly known as the Trinity of Carnatic music. History The actual history of Thiruvarur Periya Kovil (Thiyarajar Temple) goes back more than 30th Century BC. The chola kings just renovated the thiyarajar temple and built few extra shrines inside the temples. The known foremost devotee Tirunavukkarasar on 7th Century CE itself has said in his pasurams that the real existence of this cultural heritage is unknown and the templ...
6 comments
Read more

Father Sense

We know that there is something which distinguishes a dead body from a living body. That we can understand. Suppose your father dies. You will lament, "Oh, my father is no more! He has gone away." But where has he gone? Your father is lying on the bed. Why do you say that your father has gone away? "No, he is dead and gone." This shows you understand that the body lying on the bed is not your real father. So, actually, you have no eyes to see your real father. During the lifetime of your father you did not know who he was. Therefore, when the actual father goes away, you cry, "My father is gone!" The actual father is the spiritual soul within the body. And when the soul goes away from the body, that is known as death. At the present moment everyone is acting according to the bodily conception of life. But we are not the body. So we are acting for something that we are not. Therefore, we are in maya, or illusion. Our whole existence is a phantasma...
Post a Comment
Read more

Perfection of Life

When one goes to prison he has to put aside his usual dress and take the prison dress. Similarly, anyone who comes into this material world has to take a material body. This is the law. Unless you have this material body, how can you feel pleasure in material sense enjoyment? It is just like performing on stage: if you are going to play a certain part, you have to dress accordingly. Therefore, this material body is compared to a dress. For example, every lady and gentleman; every one of us; has a different dress. But our dress is superficial. As human beings we are one. Similarly, each one of us has a different bodily dress, but spiritually we are one. And this is true of all living entities: they are in different bodily dresses only. The dresses are calculated to total 8,400,000 different forms. In the water there are 900,000 different dresses, and there are 2,000,000 different types of trees and plants. There are 1,100,000 species of insects, 1,000,000 types of birds, 3,000,000 type...
Post a Comment
Read more