downpour with dark clouds and wind from all sides. It will look like a new life has
come, as if a person who has been suffering with a chronic illness for years together
has suddenly become healthy. A new taste will appear in the tongue, and a kind of
buoyancy of spirit will be felt within oneself. It will look as if the whole world is made
up of light, energy and positivity, while when there was illness, it looked that
everything was dark and gloomy, melancholic and meaningless.
It is difficult to explain what the cessation of klesas and karmas actually means.
Klesas and karmas are almost identical. The klesas are avidya, asmita, raga, dvesa
and abhinivesa. We have already studied them. The karmas, which are the outcome
of the operation of these klesas, also cease because the karmas are the way in which
the gunas act upon the individual for the purpose of bondage and individual
experience. Thus the return of the gunas to their sources, and the cessation of klesa
and karma, mean one and the same thing. They take place at the same time. The root
of illness has been dug out, and it has been eradicated thoroughly. Therefore, every
effect that followed from the original illness also has ceased.
What sort of knowledge arises in a person is mentioned in a following sutra.
Generally, knowledge means the awareness of an object. Unless there is an object, we
cannot call it knowledge. Every kind of knowledge should have a content, so the
extent of knowledge can be determined by the extent of the content of knowledge.
What is the content of knowledge? From that we can know the value of that
knowledge, or the quality of that knowledge. The larger is the content, the deeper is
the knowledge and the more valuable is the information received. This is how we
generally gauge the depth of knowledge ordinarily in this world. But the knowledge
that one acquires here, in this condition of spiritual awakening, is of a different type
altogether. It is not knowledge of a content, because the content which is outside the
process of knowing cannot be regarded as an object of insight.
What is called insight is the entry of the process of knowing into the structure of the
object. Such a thing is not possible in ordinary experience. We cannot have such
insight. It is also called intuition. What we have is only information about the objects
of the world. We do not have insight into the nature of things. But here, the soul
enters the object. Or rather, the soul of the knower enters the soul of the object. The
being of the subject enters the being of the object. Tadā sarva āvaraṇa malāpetasya
jñānasya ānaṅtyāt jñeyam alpam (IV.31) is what the sutra tells us. The jneya, or the
object of knowledge, becomes insignificant in the light of the infinitude of knowledge
that arises here. This is something very peculiar. How does the object of knowledge
become insignificant when the knowledge becomes infinite? If we carefully analyse
what knowledge is, we can understand what the sutra implies.
When the object of knowledge lies outside knowledge, it limits knowledge. Anything
that is outside us is a limitation upon us; it restricts us. The existence of another
person near us is a limitation upon our existence. And so is the case of the existence
of anything in this world. Therefore, the knowledge of an object would be of a limited
nature if the object of knowledge is outside knowledge—which means to say, if the
knowledge is merely informative, as is the case with earthly or worldly knowledge.
The extent of the object, or the range of the object, will also tell us the range of the
limitation of the knowledge. The larger is the object, the greater is the limitation
upon knowledge because if the object itself occupies all the area that is available,
there would be very little space left for knowledge to operate. When the area of the