January Gītā: 5.16

jñānena tu tad ajñānaṁ
yeṣhāṁ nāśhitam ātmanaḥ
teṣhām āditya-vaj jñānaṁ
prakāśhayati tat param

‘As the sun lights up everything in the daytime, knowledge dispels ignorance and reveals all.’
Bhagavad Gītā 5.16

As the twinkly lights and shiny decorations are packed away for next year, we hunker down and wait for the days to warm and lengthen. The symbolism of light’s banishment of darkness is central to the winter festivals of all faiths (and none). 

In our well-lit, modern world it’s not so easy for us to imagine what the night - time once meant. Beyond the meagre reach of a hearth or a candle the darkness must have been terrifying. There was a time when all the light on earth was provided by the sun. Even the luminescence of the moon is the sun’s reflection. Fire was a solar gift we learned to harness, not a human invention. No wonder the sun came to  represent certainty. At night the eyes – and the mind – were apt to play tricks on you. 

Harnessing the unruly mind and understanding reality is a big part of yoga practice. Patanjali describes the biggest obstacle to yoga as Avidya (often translated as “ignorance” but perhaps more kindly described as “lack of knowledge”). What is it that we don’t know? An obvious answer might be “the truth” but different people have different truths. As a species we are very good at dissent. We can’t even agree on the same version of God (assuming we believe in the idea of God in the first place). is there a Universal Truth we can all agree on? Perhaps one universal truth is that we don’t…in fact we can’t…know “everything”. Perhaps our best endeavour is to be grateful for all that we don’t know, simply because it compels us to keep an open mind. An open mind is like a window with the curtains drawn back, letting in as much light as we allow.