Jnana Cannot Be Recognized

Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Q: From year to year your teaching remains the same. There seems to be no progress in what you tell us.

In hospital the sick are treated and get well. The treatment is routine, with hardly any change, but there is nothing monotonous about health. My teaching may be routine, but the fruit of it is new from man to man.

Q: What is realization? Who is a realized man? By what is a jnani recognized?

There are no distinctive marks of jnana. Only ignorance can be recognized, not jnana. Nor does a jnani claims to be something special. All those who proclaim their own greatness and uniqueness are not jnanis. They are mistaking some unusual development for realization. The jnani shows no tendency to proclaim himself to be a jnani. He considers himself to be perfectly normal, true to his real nature. Proclaiming oneself to be an omnipotent, omniscient deity is a clear sign of ignorance.

Q: Can the jnani convey his experience to the ignorant? Can jnana be transmitted from one man to another?

Yes, it can. The words of a jnani have the power of dispelling ignorance and darkness in the mind. It is not the words that matter, but the power behind them.

Q: What is that power?

The power of conviction, based on personal realization, on one's own direct experience.

Q: Some realized people say that knowledge must be won, not got. Another can only teach, but the learning is one's own.

It comes to the same.

Q: There are many who have practiced yoga for years without any result. What may be the cause of their failure?

Some are addicted to trances, with their consciousness in abeyance. Without full consciousness what progress can there be?

Q: Many are practicing samadhis. In samadhis consciousness is quite intense, yet they do not result in anything.

What results do you expect? And why should jnana be the result of anything? One thing leads to another, but jnana is not a thing to be bound by causes and results. It is beyond causality altogether. It is abidance in the Self. The yogi comes to know many wonders, but of the Self he remains ignorant. The jnani may look and feel quite ordinary, but the Self he knows well.