Pain, sorrow, ignorance are all illusory; they cannot live. Bliss, joy, knowledge are true; they cannot die.

At present we educate people only up to the point where they can earn a living and marry; then education ceases altogether, as though a complete mental outfit had been acquired. ... Vast numbers of men and women thus spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of the most important things.

Avidya, ignorance, is the outward state of mind; Bidya, Knowledge, is the After-effect-poise of Kriya.

Wisdom makes light the darkness of ignorance.

All the evils that men cause to each other because of certain desires, or opinions or religious principles, are rooted in ignorance. [All hatred would come to an end] when the earth was flooded with the knowledge of God.

What blinds us, or what makes historical progress very difficult, is our lack of awareness of our ignorance.

Births and deaths are inevitable for man only during the state of ignorance in which he thinks he is the body and cannot exist without it. Only the man who will not seek the awakening of wisdom must suffer the nightmares and delusive dreams of births and deaths and the fanciful miseries and limitations attending them.

Human efforts are of four types since there are four ends or objectives of life: Artha (wealth), kama (desire), dharma (religion), and moksha (liberation). The first two drag one towards worldly things while the last two lead one towards God. The first two result in one’s downfall and ignorance whereas the last two culminate in one’s upliftment and knowledge.

Seeing the Way is like going into a dark room with a torch; the darkness instantly departs, while the light alone remains. When the Way is attained and the truth is seen, ignorance vanishes and enlightenment abides forever.

Keen intelligence is two-edged. It may be used constructively or destructively like a knife, either to cut the boil of ignorance, or to decapitate one's self. Intelligence is rightly guided only after the mind has acknowledged the inescapability of spiritual law.

Ignorance is removed automatically when the Kriya practice is perfect.

It is ignorance that smothers, and it is carelessness that makes it invisible. The hunger of craving pollutes the world, and the pain of suffering causes the greatest fear.

It is through this physical body that the highest and greatest purpose of life is achieved. A person only calls it the physical body in ignorance. Once the knowledge has come...he begins to look upon it as the sacred temple of God.

Awareness of ignorance is the beginning of wisdom.

Of the three paths – Jnana (knowledge), karma (action), or bhakti (devotion), a sadhaka should choose one which suits one’s nature. Not one of these paths is superior or inferior to the others. It is sheer ignorance to consider one’s own path to be superior and those of others to be inferior.

Better to be unborn than untaught, for ignorance is the root of all misfortune.

When the bubble of ignorance bursts the self realizes its oneness with the indivisible Self. Words that proceed from the Source of Truth have real meaning. But when men speak these words as their own, the words become meaningless.

All that lives is striving for happiness; yet a thousand and one pains and fears attend upon every pleasure which man seeks through the ignorance of exclusiveness.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

Who but the Atman is capable of removing the bonds of ignorance, passion and self-interested action?

The agnostic, the skeptic, is neurotic, but this does not imply a false philosophy; it implies the discovery of facts to which he does not know how to adapt himself. The intellectual who tries to escape from neurosis by escaping from the facts is merely acting on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.”

To think that I am this waking body and mind, this person, is an error based on ignorance of Turiya, my real Self … You think of yourself as this person—this seems to be the indubitable truth for us. What Vedanta claims is if you investigate in this method of the waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, you will come across the real you—not this person but the witness of this person, the Turiya in which this person is arising, shining, and falling again.

I am your lover, come to my side, I will open the gate to your love. Come settle with me, let us be neighbors to the stars. You have been hiding so long, endlessly drifting in the sea of my love. Even so, you have always been connected to me. Concealed, revealed, in the unknown, in the un-manifest. I am life itself. You have been a prisoner of a little pond, I am the ocean and its turbulent flood. Come merge with me, leave this world of ignorance. Be with me, I will open the gate to your love.