Dual Knowledge

Adi Sankara and other great Sages wrote several works like the commentary on the Vedanta Sutras and thus furnished the methods for those engaged in Self-enquiry to accomplish their purpose. From these, Sri Karapatra Swami later condensed the salient points into Sanskrit verse in a work of twelve chapters, called Sri Advaita Bodha Deepika. In this work the author has explained how Ignorance obscures the true nature of the Self which is non-dual only; how by its veiling aspect it covers It (the Self) with two effects - 'that It does not exist' and 'that It does not shine forth', how by its other aspect, in the shape of the mind, it projects individuals, Iswara and the work, presenting them as real; thus giving rise to illusion. How one fully qualified is alone fit to obtain this knowledge; how a bare scholar of the sastras cannot be fit; how enquiry is the chief means for knowledge; and how by the eventual unobstructed realisation of BRAHMAN (God), the Seeker becomes free from the bondage of the three kinds of Karma which form the cycle of births and deaths; how in truth there is neither bondage nor release for the SELF and in what way to extinguish the mind.