THE SPIRITUAL PATH

3. ACQUISITION OF JNAANA

Jnaana or wisdom is the supreme solvent of all suffering.  Suffering is the mental state of a man arising out of the wrong identification of his aatma with his body. This is known as dehaatma-buddhi.  The real self of it person is the permanent and imperishable fact of his nature.  It is called the aatman. It is the 'I' of a man.   It is not to be con fused with his body.

By proper training one should learn to detach the aatman from the body and its parts.  The sense of the must be separated from the body.  When this happens, the sufferings will be understood as pertaining to the body and the person will be unaffected by them.  Having thus separated his aatman from the body, the spiritual aspirant learns under the guidance of a competent teacher to realize his oneness with the Supreme by meditation on the scriptural declaration:   This aatman is Brahman.

Ultimately he attains to the unitive consciousness with the Supreme and has the ecstatic experience of his non-difference from Brahman.  Having attained this goal of Unitive consciousness with the Supreme, nothing remains to be deemed higher than that.  

'This is the stage of the highest wisdom.  One who has acquired it is a true jnaani.  Such a jnaani is unshaken even by the most acute sufferings.  Sri Krishna in the Gita affirms this: 

"Yam labdhvaa cha aparam laabham manyate naadhikam tatah

Yasminsthitho na duhkhena gurunaapi vichaalyate."

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