Yoga Sutras 2.5

2.5:Anitya asuchiduhkha anatmasu nitya suchi sukha atma khyatir avidya, Ignorance is regarding the impermanent as permanent, the impure as pure, the painful as pleasant, and the non-Self as the Self.

I have already touched upon the concept of ignorance in sutras 2.3 and 2.4. This is such an important concept in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras that I will spend a bit more time here. The Yoga Sutras could be summarized into one basic concept: the purpose of the practice of yoga is kaivalya (liberation) from ignorance-the mis-identification of the eternal, pure,and blissful Self with the impermanent, impure, painful self. This sutra (2.5) is stating that ignorance is not an intellectual lack of understanding as Taimni puts in his commentary, "It is quite obvious that the word Avidya is not used in its ordinary sense of ignorance or lack of knowledge, but in its highest philosophical sense. Avidya has nothing to do with the knowledge which we acquire through the intellect and which refers to the things concerning the phenomenal worlds. A man may be a great scholar, a walking encyclopedia as we say, and yet may be so completely immersed in the illusions created by the mind that he may stand much below a simple-minded Sahdaka who is partially aware of he great illusions of the intellect and the life in these phenomenal worlds. The avidya of the latter is much less than that of the former in spite of the tremendous difference in knowledge pertaining to the intellect." In this sutra Patanjali uses qualities of the Self and their opposites as a means of describing ignorance. The Self (Purusha or Atma) can't be completely described with any number of words but Patanjali chooses these four to describe it here.

In the Yoga Sutras (Y.S.) Patanjali makes a division between spirit and matter, Purusha and Prakriti, the unmanifest and the manifest, the seer and the seen. When the seer falsely identifies with the seen, there is suffering, ignorance. With the practice of yoga the yogi slowly grounds the awareness back into purusha. This doesn't mean that what we know to be matter doesn't exist, nor that the yogi ceases to function in the world. There is all the same stuff going on in the yogi's life plus an added dimension of expansive awareness that is very full and peaceful. With this extra dimension of awareness the yogi becomes less stressed out and less overwhelmed by the smaller stuff since it pales in comparison to the experience of bliss that comes with this higher consciousness.