“If a person knows Brahman as non-existent, he himself becomes non-existent. If he knows Brahman as existent, then know him as existent.” This is the embodied soul of the former. Thereupon the following questions of the pupil: Does anyone who knows not attain that World after departing this life? Or does he who knows attain that World after departing this life? He desired: “May I be many, may I be born. He performed austerities. Having performed austerities, He created all this – whatever there is. Having created all this, He entered into it. Having entered into it, He became both the manifested and the unmanifested, both the defined and undefined, both the supported and unsupported, both the intelligent and the non-intelligent, both the real and the unreal. The Satya became all this: whatever there is. Therefore call It the True.
Sri Ramakrishna —
Prankrishna always talked about jnana. Was this why the Master described the state of the jnani? Now he proceeded to describe the state of the vijnani.
MASTER: “Jnana is the realisation of Self through the process of ‘Neti, neti’, ‘Not this, not this’. One goes into samadhi through this process of elimination and realises the Atman.
“But vijnana means Knowledge with a greater fullness. Some have heard of milk, some have seen milk, and some have drunk milk. He who has merely heard of it is ‘ignorant’. He who has seen it is a jnani. But he who has drunk it has vijnana, that is to say, a fuller knowledge of it. After having the vision of God one talks to Him as if He were an intimate relative. That is vijnana.
“First of all you must discriminate, following the method of ‘Neti, neti’: ‘He is not the five elements, nor the sense-organs, nor the mind, nor the intelligence, nor the ego. He is beyond all these cosmic principles.’ You want to climb to the roof; then you must eliminate and leave behind all the steps, one by one. The steps are by no means the roof. But after reaching the roof you find that the steps are made of the same materials — brick, lime, and brick-dust — as the roof. It is the Supreme Brahman that has become the universe and its living beings and the twenty-four cosmic principles. That which is Atman has become the five elements. You may ask why the earth is so hard, if it has come out of Atman? All is possible through the will of God. Don’t you see that bone and flesh are made from blood and semen? How hard ‘sea-foam’3 becomes!
“After attaining vijnana one can live in the world as well. Then one clearly realises that God Himself has become the universe and all living beings, that He is not outside the world.