Are we Ignorant?

The mind itself is a creation of Ignorance. It is an effect of Ignorance. It is filled with delusion. That is the reason why it deceives and tempts you. If you can destroy the cause of the mind, by getting Knowledge of the Supreme Self, mind is nowhere. It dwindles into an airy nothing. Annihilation of mind takes place when Self Knowledge dawns.

Ignorance works through attributes, limiting adjuncts. All the special apparatus required by Ignorance constitute the Attributes of the Soul. Mind is an Attribute; Intellect is an Attribute and Ego also is an Attribute.

The sea of Ignorance is in the mind of human. The explanation of the empirical concept must be sought in the nature of our cognitive faculty. It is innate in our mental faculty, it consists in the form of a wrong conception. All lives - human entities - which are really non-existent, are (with all concomitant appearance of birth, death, etc.) mere results of the objectivist tendency of the mind and nothing else.

The whole experience of duality, made up of perceiver and perceived, is pure imagination. There is no Ignorance apart from the mind. On destruction of the mind, all is destroyed. The activity of the mind is the cause of all appearance. On account of Ignorance or illusion in the mind, you see the objects, trees, etc., outside and feel as if they are separate from you and real.

So long as there is mind, there are all these distinctions of big and small, high and low, superior and inferior, good and bad, etc. The highest Truth is that in which there is no relativity. If you can transcend the mind by constant and profound meditation on Soul, you will be able to attain the state beyond the pairs of opposites wherein lies the supreme peace and highest knowledge.

There is no Ignorance outside the mind. The mind itself is Ignorance. Imaginations and Thoughts are products of Ignorance. Ignorance is embedded in the mind. The mind needs thorough cleansing with Meditation, Pranayama, Self Inquiry, just as a rusty copper plate needs cleansing with earth, ash, tamarind, powder, etc.

Reference

Mind – Its Mysteries and Control by Sri Swami Sivananda