Viparita-Bhavana is the cause for much suffering. It is based upon the belief that the world is the only reality. Materialists who cling to nature and what it has to offer, sensualists whose entire existence centers around sensual delights and experiences, hedonists who seek after pleasures without regard to any repercussions for themselves or for others, worldly beings who desire only to pursue mundane existence, like an ostrich with its head in the sand, heedless of pressing and persistent dangers — these believe in the world and have it as their only resort. But whether the world is real or unreal is not the question. The existence of higher worlds and, especially, the state of pure nondual Awareness which conveys a bliss and fulfillment far beyond what the world has to offer, awaits the aspiring seeker of Truth. Sri Ramakrishna told many stories about the discernment that reveals the world of name and form to be without substance. “A magician came to a king to show his magic. When the magician moved away a little, the king saw a rider on horseback, arrayed in robes and armor, approaching him. The king and the audience began to reason out what was real and what was an illusion. Evidently, the horse was not real, nor the robes, nor the armor. At last they found out for certain that the rider alone was real.” The Holy Mother, Sri Ramakrishna’s wife, stated it plainly as well:

“Everything in the world has but a one or two day’s existence. Yet people are fully preoccupied with it.”

Finally, Lord Buddha states that which puts to rest the subject of attachment to the world: “Not in the sky, not in the middle of an ocean, not even in the cave of a mountain should one seek refuge, for there exists no place in the world where one will not be overpowered by death.”

Vrittijnana equates to knowledge attained by the activity of the mind. This knowledge is empirical, of the earth and limited to the physical universe and so is not beneficial for the realization of Brahman. The mind which is under the belief that its worldly knowledge is somehow absolute is laboring under one of the most subtle of Maya’s illusions. Pundits, scholars, professors — all intellectuals who are devoid of faith in God and lacking the realization of where the source of the mind’s knowledge comes from — are sorely deluded by vrittijnana. Sri Ramakrishna, seeing the learned men of His day, declared: “Vultures soar high in the sky, but their gaze is fixed on the carrion pit below.” This saying relates that though beings may be full of facts gleaned from books, they nevertheless remain attached to the base pursuits of the world via the senses and thus are really ignorant. In order to convince these kinds of beings to give up reliance on limited worldly knowledge and take to the Supreme Knowledge, He stated:

“The lens will not burn paper inside a house. Come out of the house and the lens will catch the power of the sun.”

Shankaracharya puts this matter in a unique way, as usual: “There is a pitcher of water sitting in the sun and there is a reflection of the sun in the water. The fool, seeing the reflection, thinks it to be the real sun. Just so, in mind, intelligence and other sheaths, the reflection of Atman is ignorance and the fool thinks that it is the real Self.” Lord Buddha gives an interesting insight into this problem. “The fool who knows of his ignorance, indeed, through that very consideration, becomes a wise man. But that conceited man who considers himself learned is, in fact, called a fool.”