"Andham tamah pravishanti ye vidyam upasate,
tato bhuya iva te tamo ya u vidyayagm ratah"
They who worship avidya alone enter into blindering darkness and they, who are engaged in vidya verily fall as though,into an even greater darkness.
(Isavasya Upanishad, Swami Chinmayananda, Pg-114)
What does avidya and vidya signifies here ? Swami chinmayananda explains avidya as rituals and vidya as meditation. Interpreting the meaning of the same Swami goes on to say, that those who are involved only in rituals, will never be able to identify their true self, they will be constantly driven by maya or illusion. The argument which he puts forth there, is that rituals are performed only for material benefits. Seeking only material benefits in his living man is definitely not going to achieve self realization. At the same time, people involved in vidhya that is mediation, may also not get the right benefits, because in haste they may tend to over do it. Swami emphasises the point "as though into an even greater darkness", the mediator may feel that he is not having any benefits of his long and continuous mediation session, but has to wait patiently to allow it to work on him.Over a period of time man's meditation efforts will earn its fruit. The real fruit of mediation is self realization.
Swamiji explores further into this sloka, the negative prefix A in samskrata can mean two things. It can be the antonym of a word when applied on the same or else it can also mean that the word of attention is not truly the same but something similar to it.Avidya, may not be opposite of vidhya, but may be something close to it, but not exactly the same. Given that, can we take the meaning of vidhya as higher meditation and avidhya as selfless service, rather than rituals. The avidhya here may mean karma. Ishopanishad in its second sloka has pondered on the karma saying that "A man should wish to live a hindered years, purely doing his karma. This alone is the right path and action never clings to a man in the path". This interpretation gives a completely new meaning to this sloka now.
The sloka turns out to say that, both Vidhya and Avidhya are equally important to a man. A man who ignores his karma and mearly does meditation and the one who merely does meditation ignoring his karma, both are destined not to reach the state of self realization.
