Information v Knowledge
This writer had submitted a Gujarati post titled "सा विद्या या विमुक्तये" by email to some of his contacts. It is available elsewhere on this website. सा विद्या या विमुक्तये
In response, he was asked to explain the terms विद्या and विमुक्ति. It is a very difficult assignment. An attempt, far from perfect, is made below.
The word विद्या, pronounced 'Vidyaa' is based on the Sanskrit verb 'Vid' meaning 'to know'. Therefore, it is supposed to mean 'knowledge' and often confused and used interchangeably with the word ज्ञान 'gyan' meaning 'knowledge'. There is some difference between the two as will be mentioned in the following.
Vidya can be of four different kinds and/or stages.
The most common meaning of the word is 'information or fact' about the physical attributes of things and processes. It helps us plan our actions. For example, the mathematics to calculate the trajectory of a thing hurled towards the sky at a given angle is useful to the gunners of an artillery to destroy a target at a known distance and elevation.
The word also means skill. Having the fact in itself may not be sufficient to perform the task on hand. A coach would know how to make an athlete run faster, but cannot apply it to himself/herself. That skill belongs to the individual runner. A music director develops the rhythm but hires another person to sing.
Then there is wisdom (gyan). How and where to apply the information and skill requires wisdom. The gunner mentioned above has to refrain from destroying civilian targets. The runner, if chasing a criminal, has to stop and apprehend the latter.
There is also 'Atmavidya' that pertains to the spiritual practices of meditation etc. This writer is not qualified to discuss it.
The following history would illustrate the above.
The greatest scientist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein (AE) published, in 1905, his famous equation (E = mc2) to calculate the amount of the energy that can be released by splitting the atoms in a given quantity m (mass) of substance. That is information. Just knowing it will not give us the energy. We need the skill to use it.
Some scientists of German descent, working in America, got the information that the Germans were trying to acquire the skill to use that equation to make devastating bombs. They approached AE and persuaded him to write a letter dated August 2, 1939 to the American president to develop an atomic bomb. The US government took up the Manhattan project and did succeed in 1945. The skill was achieved.
In the meantime, the British also received the same information. They had the wisdom to destroy, by sabotage, the Germans' stock of heavy water, essential for making the bomb. The Germans were defeated by conventional warfare before they could make the atomic bomb.
During the 40 years from 1905 to 1945, AE and between 1939 and 1945 the other great Nobel prize winning contributing scientists developed the skill for making the bomb. They did not have the wisdom to use that equation for generating electrical power. It had to wait until the middle of the next decade. Even the use of nuclear power is not devoid of harmful effect of the radioactive waste it produces in the process.
Now about विमुक्ति. It is a special form of मुक्ति meaning 'liberation'. It presupposes bondage. विमुक्ति is spiritual liberation of the soul from the worldly bondages caused by its body. This writer has infinitesimal knowledge about it. Let us just think about मुक्ति.
मुक्ति also means freedom. We like to believe that we are 'born free'; we don't have to follow laws and rules of the community we live in. This tends to make us 'Slaves of Freedom'. We violate the rules thereby harming ourselves and sometimes others too. We believe in 'Free Markets'. The marketeers take it to be their freedom to overcharge their customers, exploit their employees, pollute the environment and cheat on taxes.