Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.
– African proverb
Ignorance is a state of consciousness. If you compare consciousness to a light bulb then ignorance is a dim light bulb that can barely illuminate the world about it. Ignorance is obscurity. This means you do not know you are ignorant when you are in ignorance. Ignorance is utter identification with your body, your thoughts and the world around as true and real. You are in a superficial and unexamined state of being, asleep believing you are awake. In this condition the world and your life is taken at face value, taken for granted and unquestioned. You are identified with the hopes, fears, ideas and experiences that come from the body-mind-ego construct. You are utterly identified with your point of view. Your ideas, thoughts, feelings, moods, memories, beliefs, opinions, hopes, desires, fears and habits are real for you, they are the reality.
The inner Reality, God or Truth does not exist or is from your point of view. In this state of consciousness you are living life disconnected from what is real and what truly works. Thus you bang around in life, this way and that, like a pin ball in an old fashion pinball game. You are a fish ignorant of water, not knowing how vital it is to your existence. You do not know what is real, what is missing or what truly works or brings true fulfillment. Thus you are bound by unrecognized influences and forces over which you have no control or say. You are bound by fear and desire with no idea of freedom. Your life is on automatic, not questioning the assumptions and conditioning that all of us have been programmed with. You are in a state of bondage and suffering without knowing it.
Photo by Robert Spiegel/Flickr