Chapter II

The sublime significance of Vidya or the Higher Learning can be grasped by one or can be communicated to another only when the pure mind sheds its revealing light. Inside a room kept scrupulously clean, no snake, no scorpion, no poison-bearing insect can enter. They will be at home only in dark dirty places. For the same reason, the sacred wisdom cannot enter hearts which are dark and dirty. Instead, poisonous breeds like anger would find those hearts congenial resorts.

When one desires to rid coal of its colour, what can soap and water do? Nor can washing the lump in milk help. The only means is to put it in a fire. That will turn it into a heap of white ash. In the same manner, when one is anxious to destroy the darkness of ignorance and the dirt of desire, awareness of the Atma (Atmajnana) or, in other words, knowledge of Brahma (Brahmavidya) has to be gained. Darkness can be ended only with the help of light. We cannot overwhelm darkness by attacking it with more darkness. Vidya is the light that one needs to destroy the inner darkness. Vidya provides the inner illumination. Vidya is the authentic Purushothama Yoga, the Yoga of the Supreme Person defined in the Gita, the knowledge of the Supreme, The Higher Learning, the Vidya. This Yoga cannot be bought for money or acquired from friends or ordered from concerns or companies. It has to be assimilated and won by each one for oneself, through steady faith and ardent devotion.

The expression 'God is nowhere' can remain unchanged; there is no need to confront or contradict it. The only thing necessary is to read the 'w' in 'where' in conjunction with the previous 'no,' so that it becomes 'God is now here!' The negative suddenly becomes positive. Similarly, by merely unifying in one direction the multidirectional vision now directed on the universe, the distinctions and the differences disappear and the Many becomes One.