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Chapter 1: Background
Bare knowledgeable people are those who verbally talk of bondage and liberation as being imaginary; but who behave under the influence of delusion.
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Explanation & Discussion:
This stanza explains the characteristics of the bare knowledgeable people. A bare knowledgeable person is the one who has acquired information from scriptures but has not applied it in his beliefs and daily life. There are people who come across the spiritual books dealing with the basic and absolute purity of the soul. They conclude that since the soul is intangible, it cannot be defiled; it is incorruptible and stays pure forever. The philosophy of Vedänt states that the soul can never be polluted and its defilement is merely imaginary. It always stays pure and does not incur any bondage. Therefore, nothing is required for liberation, except understanding the soul's inherent pure state.
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By virtue of the belief in purity of the soul, such persons may perhaps stay away from gross passions, but they usually remain unconcerned about the subtle ones. Believing that sense organs have nothing to do with the soul, they are also likely to indulge in the sense objects. They fail to realize that the spiritual knowledge does not leave scope for attachment to any worldly object or for indulging in anger, animosity, arrogance, or other defiling instincts. The truly knowledgeable people invariably refrain themselves from indulging in indolence, infatuation, etc.
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On account of previous Karma, the sense of attachment or aversion may at times arise even to a truly knowledgeable person, but he understands that such sense is not compatible
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