Ignorance is the failure to discriminate between the permanent

Host: The monsoon rain poured like silver threads across the ashram courtyard, hissing softly against stone and leaf. The air smelled of earth, sandalwood, and discipline — the mingled scent of nature and contemplation. Bells chimed faintly from the meditation hall, marking the hour not as time but as rhythm.

Inside the dim hall, the flickering oil lamps cast halos of gold against the whitewashed walls. Incense smoke curled like soft breath, coiling between silence and thought.

Jack sat cross-legged near the doorway, raindrops still glistening on his hair, a notebook open on his knees. He looked tired, but the kind of tired that comes from wrestling with questions, not work. Across from him, Jeeny sat with her back straight, eyes closed, her posture calm — that kind of stillness that looks like defiance to the restless.

Between them, on the floor, was a small handwritten quote written in Sanskrit and English, its ink smudged by a drop of rain:

“Ignorance is the failure to discriminate between the permanent and the impermanent, the pure and the impure, bliss and suffering, the Self and the non-Self.” — Patanjali

Jeeny: (opening her eyes slowly) “It’s strange how a single sentence can expose your whole life.”

Host: Her voice was soft, but every syllable landed with the precision of someone who’d sat with truth long enough to be bruised by it.

Jack: (half-smiling) “Yeah. Leave it to a sage to make ignorance sound so elegant.”

Jeeny: “It isn’t elegance. It’s diagnosis.”

Jack: (flipping a page) “So tell me, Doctor — what’s mine?”

Jeeny: (smiling faintly) “Attachment. You chase things that don’t last and call them meaning.”

Jack: (raising an eyebrow) “Like what?”

Jeeny: “Recognition. Comfort. Even your pain. You treat it like proof you’re alive.”

Host: The rain outside grew heavier, filling the pauses between their words with its steady, meditative percussion.

Jack: “And you? What’s your ignorance?”

Jeeny: “Believing detachment makes me wise. It just makes me lonely.”

Jack: (quietly) “So we’re opposites.”

Jeeny: “No. We’re mirrors. You mistake impermanence for purpose; I mistake distance for peace.”

Host: A streak of lightning illuminated the hall — brief, brilliant, gone. For a moment, both their faces were visible, half-lit by revelation, half-shadowed by resistance.

Jack: “So that’s what Patanjali means — ignorance isn’t stupidity. It’s confusion. Between what lasts and what doesn’t.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Between the things that shimmer and the things that shine.”

Jack: “We build our whole lives around what’s temporary — jobs, houses, people — and then we’re surprised when it hurts.”

Jeeny: “Because we were taught to worship the impermanent. To call desire love, possession success, comfort truth.”

Host: The incense burned lower, its smoke curling in tighter spirals — a visible metaphor for the conversation itself.

Jack: “You think anyone ever learns the difference? Between the permanent and the impermanent?”

Jeeny: “Some do. But it’s not knowledge — it’s awakening. You can read every sacred text and still be asleep.”

Jack: “So what wakes you?”

Jeeny: “Loss.”

Jack: (looking up) “You mean suffering.”

Jeeny: “Same thing. Suffering is the teacher of discernment.”

Host: The rain softened again, almost pausing, as though the sky itself was listening.

Jack: “So suffering isn’t punishment.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s correction. It burns away confusion — teaches you what can be taken from you and what never can.”

Jack: “Like the Self versus the non-Self.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The Self can’t be hurt. The rest of us just keep mistaking the shadow for the substance.”

Host: A small pool of water formed near the doorway, reflecting the candlelight in trembling gold.

Jack: “You think that’s why Patanjali called ignorance avidya — un-seeing. It’s not darkness; it’s blindness.”

Jeeny: “Yes. We live surrounded by light but close our eyes because truth dazzles too much.”

Jack: “And so we keep reaching for what flickers instead.”

Jeeny: “And then wonder why our hands are always empty.”

Host: The rhythm of the rain returned, softer now, like a second breath — the sound of something vast yet intimate.

Jack: “You know what I think, Jeeny? Every heartbreak, every disappointment — it’s the universe whispering, ‘Not that. That’s not permanent.’”

Jeeny: (smiling) “That’s beautiful. And cruel.”

Jack: “The truth usually is.”

Jeeny: “But necessary. Discrimination — viveka — that’s what Patanjali calls it. The ability to see clearly. Without wanting to own what you see.”

Jack: “Clarity without control.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Love without grasping. Joy without demand. Faith without proof.”

Host: The lamp flickered, its flame rising, then shrinking, as if echoing the subtle tension in their words — the pull between intellect and surrender.

Jack: “So what’s left when you finally see it all clearly?”

Jeeny: “Peace. But not the kind that’s quiet — the kind that’s vast.”

Jack: “The peace of knowing the Self.”

Jeeny: “Yes. The part of you that doesn’t change when everything else does.”

Host: He looked down at the quote again, tracing each word as though it were a map to something sacred.

Jack: “I like that Patanjali doesn’t call ignorance evil. He just calls it confusion. That means we’re not damned — we’re just disoriented.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Enlightenment isn’t climbing higher. It’s turning around.”

Jack: “Seeing what was always there.”

Jeeny: “And finally believing it’s enough.”

Host: The thunder had faded now, leaving only the soft dripping from the roof and the steady hum of insects outside.

Jack: “So what do we do, then — when we realize how blind we’ve been?”

Jeeny: “We forgive ourselves for not seeing sooner. And then we start watching — gently.”

Jack: “Watching what?”

Jeeny: “Everything. The rise and fall of breath. The coming and going of people. The dance of pleasure and pain. It’s all impermanent — but it’s all practice.”

Host: The rain ceased. Silence returned — not empty, but awakened. The kind of silence that listens back.

Jeeny: (softly) “Ignorance isn’t sin, Jack. It’s sleep. And the universe — it keeps shaking us awake.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “You think we’ll ever stop falling back asleep?”

Jeeny: “No. But maybe we’ll wake up a little faster each time.”

Host: The lamp finally dimmed, its flame trembling before dissolving into smoke — a small death, a small liberation.

And in that holy hush, Patanjali’s words echoed in the stillness like a mantra fulfilled:

that ignorance is not darkness,
but confusion between what fades and what endures;
that awakening is not escape,
but seeing — clearly, kindly, continually;
and that wisdom begins
when the heart can tell the difference
between what the world gives,
and what the Self never loses.

Outside, the rain had stopped.
The earth steamed in silence.
And somewhere between the impermanent and the eternal,
two souls sat in quiet understanding —
awake.