31. Until we acquire the power to discriminate between truth and falsehood, it is not possible to distinguish between the body and the Self. This discrimination, this knowledge, should pervade every fibre of our being. The word "jnana", we take to mean, "to know." But to know with the mind is not jnana, true knowledge. To stuff one's mouth with food is not the same as eating. The food in the mouth should be masticated, passed through the gullet into the stomach, digested, converted into blood, and circulated throughout the body to nourish it.

Only then will it become real food. In the same way, mere knowledge of the mind in unavailing. That knowledge should pervade all one's life and flow through one's heart. It should express itself through the hands and the feet, the eyes and every other member. One should attain a state when all the organs of perception and action work from knowledge. Therefore, in the Thirteenth Chapter, the Lord has given a beautiful description of jnana. The mark of this jnana are like those of sthitaprajna - humility, sincerity, ahimsa, straightness, forgiveness. 

Twenty such qualities, the Lord enumerates. He does not merely say that these qualities are called Jnana, he says clearly that their opposites are ajnana. The means to jnana, are themselves jnana. Socrates regarded good qualities as themselves jnana. The means and the end are identical.

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