Be As You Are - ch. 3, The jnani

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Many of the Sri Ramana's visitors appeared to have an insatiable curiosity about

the state of Self-realization and they were particularly interested to know how

a jnani experienced himself and the world around him. Some of the questions he

was asked on the subject reflected the bizarre notions that many people had

about this state, but most of them tended to be variations of one of the four

following questions: 1. How can a jnani function without any individual

awareness of consciousness? 2. How can he say that he 'does nothing' (a

statement which Sri Ramana often made) when others see him active in the world?

3. How does he perceive the world? Does he perceive the world at all? 4. How

does the jnani's awareness of pure consciousness relate to the alternating

states of body and mind consciousness experienced in waking, dreaming and

sleeping?

The hidden premise behind all such questions is the belief that there is a

person (the jnani) who experiences a state he calls the Self. This assumption

is not true. It is merely a mental construct devised by those who have not

realized the Self (ajnanis) to make sense of the jnani's experience. Even the

use of the word jnani is indicative of this erroneous belief since it literally

means a knower of jnana, the reality. The ajnani uses this term because he

imagines that the world is made up of seekers of reality and knowers of

reality; the truth of the Self is that there are neither jnanis nor ajnanis,

there is only jnana. Sri Ramana pointed this out both directly and indirectly

on many occasions, but few of his questioners were able to grasp, even

conceptually, the implications of such a statement. Because of this he usually

adapted his ideas in such a way that they conformed to the prejudices of his

listeners. In most of the conversations in this chapter he accepts that his

questioners perceive a distinction between the jnani and the ajnani,and without

challenging the basis of that assumption, he assumes the role of the jnani and

attempts to explain the implications of being in that state.

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