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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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