give up the ureal

[Guest guest]

Day by Day with Bhagavan________19462-1-46 Afternoon (concluded)Another visitor said, "Jnanis generally retire from activelife and do not engage in any worldly activity."Bhagavan: They may or may not. Some, even afterrealising, carry on trade or business or rule over a kingdom.Some retire into forests and abstain from all acts except thoseabsolutely necessary to keep life in the body. So, we cannotsay all jnanis give up activity and retire from life.Visitor: I want to know if Bhagavan can give concreteexamples, like the butcher Dharmavyadha mentioned in ourbooks, of jnanis now living and doing their ordinary dailywork in life.Bhagavan did not answer.Visitor: Is renunciation necessary for Self-realisation?Bhagavan: Renunciation and realisation are the same.They are different aspects of the same state. Giving up thenon-self is renunciation. Inhering in the Self is jnana or Selfrealisation.One is the negative and the other the positiveaspect of the same, single truth. Bhakti, jnana, yoga — aredifferent names for Self-realisation or mukti which is ourreal nature. These appear as the means first. They eventuallyare the goal. So long as there is conscious effort required onour part to keep up bhakti, yoga, dhyana, etc., they are themeans. When they go on without any effort on our part, wehave attained the goal. There is no realisation to be achieved.The real is ever as it is. What we have done is, we haverealised the unreal, i.e., taken for real the unreal. We have togive up that. That is all that is wanted.Visitor: How has the unreal come? Can the unreal springfrom the real?Bhagavan: See if it has sprung. There is no such thingas the unreal, from another standpoint. The Self alone exists.When you try to trace the ego, based on which alone the worldand all exist, you find the ego does not exist at all and so alsoall this creation.