Viveka
Viveka · vi-veka, “discrimination”
Jñāna has other meanings too: see all meanings of Jñāna.
Grammar: masculine noun, from vi with the root vic (to separate, to sift): “sifting apart”. Vivekī is the discerning person, avivekī the undiscerning; ātmānātma-viveka is the discrimination of the ātmā from what is not the ātmā.
Meaning: discrimination; the power to tell the real from the unreal, the ātmā from the body and the world, prakṛti from purusha.
In the scriptures: the Bhāgavata Purāṇa speaks of viveka as the knowledge that sets the jīva free from the body, and pictures it as an axe and a sword.
Prakṛti and purusha. Kapila tells Devahūti that the jñānī who knows the true nature of prakṛti and purusha has no false sense of “I” and “mine” towards the body; with this discernment he knows that waking and the other states belong to the buddhi and that the ātmā is not stained by them, and he sees that nothing exists apart from Īśvara. The chapter’s own title is “attaining moksha through discernment of prakṛti and purusha” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27).
The body as guru. The avadhūta tells King Yadu that his own body was one of his gurus: from it he learned viveka and vairāgya, for it has birth and death and constant suffering as its fruit, and in the end it becomes food for worms; so he moves about without attachment to it (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 9). Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava that one without discrimination of ātmā and anātmā identifies with the body, thinks himself the doer of what the senses do, and is bound in saṃsāra (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 11).
The axe of viveka. “So be attentive and keep viveka,” Śrī Kṛshṇa tells Uddhava. “Serving the guru, with one-pointed bhakti in me, sharpen the axe of discriminating knowledge. With it cut the upādhi of the jīva, which is attachment to the body, merge in the Paramātmā, and then give up the sādhana itself” (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 12).
The discerning and the undiscerning. In the heart of the undiscerning person arises the false idea “the body is I”; rajas fills his mind, desire is born and he cannot give it up. Even the discerning person may feel the disturbance of rajas and tamas in the buddhi, but he sees the fault in sense-enjoyments, restrains the mind, and is not caught. And Bhagavān Śrī Hari as Haṃsa tells the Sanakādis: waking and the other states are imagined in the mind by his māyā of three guṇas; by hearing the sat-purushas and practising the discrimination of ātmā and anātmā, the sword of viveka is sharpened; with it cut all doubts, the diseases of the mind, and worship him who dwells in the heart (Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 11, Chapter 13).
Related terms: Vairāgya · Avidyā · Ātmā · Prakṛti · Purusha · Jñāna
Sources
- Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Skandha 3, Chapter 27; Skandha 11, Chapters 9, 11–13