[Advaita-l] Definition of Jnani

[Bhaskar YR]

praNAms Sri Venkataramani prabhuji
Hare Krishna

*I diagree. We can point to a person and say he is a jnani. 

>  Yes, at the best, we can say he is 'brahma jnAni' not an absolute 
brahman...but shruti is saying those who know brahman would become 
brahman..is it mere intellectual understanding of the jnAni that he is 
brahman (like absolute materialist's conviction that he_is_saMsAri??) or 
is it something else to do with intuition??  And again, if we say he is a 
jnAni, the second question crops up : what type of jnAni he is?? whether 
he is brahmavida or brahmavidvara or brahmavidvarishTa??  and again third 
question crops up after labelling him as a particular type of jnAni..i.e. 
criteria through which we have determined the type of jnAni.  If we say 
varishTa type of jnAni would become brahman then that varishTa too does 
not match with the brahman as depicted in shruti-s..It is simply because 
we are seeing ALL jnAni-s with their BMI complex & prArabdha is having a 
say on them.

*Jnanis have unique body, mind and actions due to prarabda. This does not
mean that there can be different definitions for who a jnani is. I agree
that there are definitions for different stages of jnana bhumi. *

>  different types of jnAna or levels of jnAna can be possible ONLY in 
chOdana tantra jnAna or purusha taNtra jnAna or in the mArga of krama 
mukti which is the result of dhyAna & upAsana.  But in vastu tantra jnAna 
i.e. jneya brahma jnAna, this anekAkAra of jnAna is not possible & it is 
not absolute jnAna either (eka rUpameva phalaM mOkshaH..declares shankara 
somewhere)..I cannot say, now I realized that the tail of the snake is not 
snake but rope but the hood of the snake is still troubling me :-)) the 
partial jnAna is ajnAna only it is not paripUrNa jnAna in absolute sense. 
mukti is NOT jnAna kArya, jnAna helps us to reveal the ever existing 
svarUpa.  nityatvAt mOkshasya, sAdhakasvarUpAvyatirekAccha says shankara 
in bruhad bhAshya.

*I agree and would like to study Bhakti Rasayana of Madhusudana. I would
think the para bhakti is non-different from atma-jnanam.

>  Yes prabhuji, you are absolutely right..shankara clarifies what is 
parAbhakti in geeta bhAshya. Those who realized this chaturtha bhakti, 
would realize that this type of bhakti would not do any harm to shruti 
siddhAnta i.e. non-duality of brahman.

Hari Hari Hari Bol!!!
bhaskar