Ashtavakra Gita 15.3 -

This superb knowledge of Truth makes an eloquent, erudite and vibrantly active one immensely silent, inert and lazy; hence it is abandoned by those craving for sensory enjoyments.

Ashtavakra without any reservation explains the exalted level of Self-knowledge and Self-realization. For, by doing so alone will the greatness and grandeur of the Self as well as the benefits of realizing it will become clear.

Interaction with the sense objects only corrodes the senses, as young Nachiketas described before Yama, God of Death. How can any wise person accept sensory indulgences as desirable and valuable? By chasing anything, none will like to endanger himself. However sweeping the enjoyments are, if they shorten our lifespan, of what interest are they to us? It is like the sumptuous meal offered to the criminal being taken to the gallows!

If the realization of the blissful Self will fill the seeker’s mind, why should he take to any kind of activity, however laudable it may be? This only shows the comprehensive all-satisfying nature of Self-realization!

True, some after their realization become so full with spiritual inebriation that they wander indifferent to everything and everybody around. Some remain lost to the inner ecstasy.

The usual flair for the objects of the world holds no meaning. This does not mean one should be like this or will be so. Those who shun it are ignorant of the treasure. Their delusion does not devalue the treasure the least.

Krishna in Bhagavad Gita (2.69 ) has beautifully illustrated it with the contrasting day and night. He says: “What is day to the ordinary people, is night for the Knower. And what is night to the ordinary folk, is brilliant day for him.”

The world and all its objects are what the senses perceive by dint of their own potential. Senses are the outermost in our personality, which is far more than the body in which they are situated.

We have mind within the body, then the intelligence, which studies all the data the mind collects through the senses, and ego. The one still beyond is the ‘I’, the Self.

What is the dimension, amplitude of the mind? The entire world is what the mind imprints in itself. How huge should it be?

Sensory world is trifling. The dimension that mind, intelligence and ego hold with them, is far more infinite. Do people care to know about it? It is darkness for them. But the Knowers wake up in this and enjoy infinite bliss.

Where ordinary people wake up, the Knower dismisses it altogether like night.

Tattva-jñāna, Knowledge of Truth, is certainly supreme, sovereign, wholesome and beatific to the core. At no cost is it to be downgraded, disregarded or eschewed. Human life gifted with intelligence is indeed meant to take up the inner probe as early as possible and succeed in realizing the inner spiritual splendour!

To the Knower, the outer physical world of enjoyments is like darkness, useless and devastating. No wonder the exalted Knower takes to silence, as he finds nothing to be extolled about the world.