Ignorance is the freedom of Truth

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Acharya Prashant (AP): Ignorance is the freedom of Truth. The Source obviously is free. When it is said that it is free, it means it is free to express itself and free to not to express, and there can be no speculation or determination of its nature by the mind; causeless freedom and causeless cessation of freedom, at least apparent cessation of freedom; free in all aspects, all dimensions.

It is very easy for us to believe when it is said that the ultimate is the merciful, all-powerful, illuminated, remover of suffering, good, virtuous, and that is the way it has been conceived in religion and in man’s mind, that the ultimate is the wonderful entity. But rarely do we want to see that the real, the ultimate is also free to be nasty, to be mean, to be absolutely merciless, to be very non-virtuous, and to be Satan itself.

And because the human mind does not want to look at that aspect of the ultimate, it creates an unnecessary duality. It takes Satan and juxtaposes it against a God. Sometimes it takes some ‘Maaya’. Then a Shankaracharya will come and say, ‘Brahm’ is the ‘Truth’ and ‘Jagat’ is ‘Mithya’. Why is ‘Jagat’, ‘mithya’? Because it is the work of ‘Maaya’, because it is ‘Avidya’, because it is ‘Ignorance’, so the world is false. But then very few…