Ignorance

Ignorance means not seeing things are they are. To many people who are well educated,  its uneasy to think that they are ignorant. That applies to me too but of late, I realized that  I had completely failed to understand the reality of things happening around me - the reality of life if you will. For instance, consider the situation of  walking all alone on a road at the dead of night. We are familiar with what happens when we see a shape in the shadow of darkness - the quickening of our steps even though that shape might just be a short tree stump. It is our ignorance that creates a sense of panic and causes us to speed up. But, suppose there was some light, we would have noticed the tree stump and accepted it for what it was.  There would have been no fear, no suffering because there would have been no ignorance. 

To think that one has suffering, pain, grief, despair - that it is not fair and one needs only security and happiness stems from ignorance which makes things complicated and results in far greater problems.  This ' ignorance' sows the seed for craving, hatred, jealousy, pride and what not.  Much of human anguish which is empty and meaningless is also born out of ignorance  It is because of this that the human mind tells us to annihilate things that lay in our path. 

So long as we dont develop the ability to concentrate and open our minds to the true nature of things,  we remain ignorant.  But with the right conditions and training, the unerring nature of things are revealed and we no longer dwell in the abyss of ignorance.