Who is educated? Who is a pandit? One who is able to discriminate between what really exists and what is not. Since the world is an illusion, yet contains the kernel of truth which is real, this ability to constantly discriminate makes one educated. Indeed, this is the goal and end of all education.
Sri Adi Sankaracharya says in the Vivekachoodamani that while the real alone exists, the unreal is only a projection of the mind which has to be ignored. The one who has understood this through the mirror of the Shrutis or the books of knowledge has indeed seen that supreme truth. Having known this, if they continue to hold on to the unreal or changing names and forms for real, that seeker of liberation is like a child running indiscriminately only to fall.
Explaining the state of mind of the ignorant and the wise individual, the Acharya says there is no freedom for the one who is attached to the body, senses, mind, thoughts and everything connected with the body. For the one who is liberated, there is no sense of ownership of the body, mind and intellect. A sleeping man knows not the state of being awake, nor does the one who is awake see dreams as they are holding on to two different states of mind.
To help us know this state, the Master draws a pen picture of a liberated being. The man who has realised his own true form within and without, encompassing all that is stationary and moving, he realises that life is the substratum for it all. He gives up his attention to thoughts of all objects of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. He is free who just rests in himself as the complete one without a second.
The cause of release from bondage is experiencing oneself as the Self in all. There is none other than you in that state of Self. Everyone you see around is you alone. He attains to this state of mind that easily drops its hold on all objects of perception through steadfast contemplation on one’s own existence, which is the same as the existence of all beings, objects and situations.
How is this state of independence achieved? How is it possible for the one who exists with a confirmed thought that he is the body and constantly engaged in pursuit of pleasures of the senses? The knower of truth who wishes to be ever blissful in that state of Self must put in effort to give up attachments to all sense of duties, actions and objects of perception, and be eternally established in contemplation of the Self.