avidya (was Re: message to my friends)

[Ravisankar S. Mayavaram]

On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Charles Wikner wrote:

>
> Answer #2: YES. Ignorance has neither beginning nor end.  It doesn't
> have a middle either!  (unless you are fooled by appearances :-)
>
> The first answer is slick sophistry (there is no specific cause for
> that particular ignorance); the second is advaita (GK 2:6, 4:31).
>

Should #2 read

Ignorance did not exist in the beginning, it does not exist in
the end, and it does not have a middle either. For something
which did not exist in the beginning and which not going to exist
in the end, how does it matter if it exists in the middle or
not?

Please correct me.

What I learnt in the past was avidya is anAdi but it has an end.
At the dawn of wisdom, ignorance vanishes like darkness vanishing
at the sight of light. In a sense it is like darkness. Absence of
light is perceived as darkness, as such there is nothing like an
entity called darkness.


Ravi