The Verse 27 of Upadesa Saram, in Tamil, reads as under:
ARivu ARiyamaiyum Atra ARive,
ARivahum unmai idhu Undhipara,
ARivatharku onRilai Undhipara!
(ARivu - knowledge, empirical, worldly knowledge.
ARiyamai - ignorance.
Atra - without these.
ARive - Knowledge.
ARivahum unmai - that is the real pure knowledge.
ARivatharku onRilai - no object is to be known.)
Osborne's/K.Swaminathan's translation is as under:
That is true knowledge which transcends
Both knowledge and ignorance
For in pure knowledge
Is no object to be known.
The worldly knowledge implies, "I know". The ignorance implies,
"I do not know". The Self Knowledge, which is Pure Knowledge,
is not both. It is: I AM. Once this state is attained or merged with,
there is no object to be known.
The Brahma Jnana or the Truth is the "Sat". It is only a conviction,
I AM THAT I AM. In this state of 'anubhuti' there is no empirical
knowldge or ignorance. It is beyond these two. IT IS JUST IS.
Further, since there is nothing other than the Self, there is nothing
to be known or be ignorant of. Hence there is no object to be known.
Then the question is: How then the Brahma Jnani moves about in
the world? How does he have empirical knowledge for various activities? The answer is: Since He is the Self and since there is nothing other than
the Self, the Self 'does' the activities of seeing, writing, speaking, teaching, attending to minimum required bodily needs. Then a further
question: How does He 'see' others and move with them. Since there
is nothing other than the Self, He 'sees' every being as the Self.
We have numerous incidents in Bhagavan Ramana's life. After merging
in the Self, all the emprical knowledge comes of its own accord, and
in perfection! For example, Stephen Hawking, the great astrophysicist,
joined the undergraduate course at the age of 12 in Cambridge. Having
joined the undergraduate course at the age of 12, for a genius, will it
be difficult to tell the Multiplication Table 12? The multiplication tables
are empirical knowledge, he, a genius was already at the undergradauate
class at the age of 12 studying Newton and Einstein. Like that Bhagavan
Ramana, even though he never entered the kitchen in Tiruchuzhi or
Madurai, could be culiniary expert in the kitchen in the Asram. He could
tell about each leaf and herb in the Hills and explain the medicinal
properties. He could stitch leaf-plates in perfection. He discussed
the theory of relativity with one Swami from SRK Math, Paris and told
him that the relativity theory is the pinnacle of human wisdom but the
Self-Knowldge is much beyond that! While relativity assumes two
observers from different spots to know the relavity of time, the Self
Realized Person is the only observer of all phenomena! Such a realized
soul is beyond the time-space continuum!
Arunachala Siva.