One who practices jnana yoga has practiced the other yogas for many, many lifetimes.
The yoga of knowledge is the yoga of perfection. It is the end and the beginning of all things.
We examine everything in existence and we come to see that everything is transitory and temporal, that which is left over is God, is eternity, is the Self.
There is nothing but God.
When we talk about self-realization, we're talking from the point of view of limitation of the mind. Real knowledge is to see that you are that - you are eternity.
To talk about realizing the Self is discontinuous because there is nothing to realize but the Self. There is nothing but realization.
There is no one to realize the Self.
To realize the Self involves an action, it implies that there is something to realize, that there is time, a temporal world, and that Self is not yet realized, but will be realized by the actor through action.
This is not the case. There is nothing that is not the Self. The Self does not have to be realized.
There has never been anything but the Self. There is no world, there is no time, there is no place, there is no condition. There is nothing and there can be nothing else.
The illusion of selfhood, ego, a separate identity is false.
Sometimes, as we practice jnana yoga, we feel that life has no meaning, no purpose. We feel that there is no reason to try, that life is empty. This is another illusion.
The illusion of purpose is to be avoided. The illuion of lack of purpose is to be avoided.
It might seem that this knowledge is cold, devoid of emotion, empty. This is another illusion.
It is neither favorable nor unfavorable, because no one is there to favor it.
Anything you can say, think, feel, trust or feel is untrue - is an illusion. The fact that there are these things is an illusion.
Illusion doesn't mean that something is not real. Illusion simply means that something is less real than something else. This life and this world certainly exist - who is to say the reality of the dream is not real?
"The dream is real but it does not last" - This is an illusion.
"Nothing is as it seems" - This is an illusion.
"There are no illusions" - This is a gross illusion.
No matter which way you turn ... there's nothing but illuison.
How do we find a way out? By realizing that there's no place to go, that there's no way out, that there's no way in. All that exists is the Self.
The Self is infinite. The Self is eternal. You are that Self. Beyond words, thoughts, ideas, forms and belief systems. There is nothing but the Self.
It is only when you have become that true Self consciously, when all these illusions have fallen away, that you will be perfectly free and perfectly happy.
If silence only conveys the Self, if all words and thoughts are illusions, why do we discuss it?
