Only Jnanis (liberated persons), who have realised the Divine, can demonstrate the nature of infinite Divinity, and not others. Let me give a small example. One individual asks another, ‘who is your father?’ You had no eyes to see your father before birth. Nor did you have the intelligence to find out who your father was? The second man replies, ‘The proof for my statement is derived from my mother, who told me who my father was.’ This shows that on a matter so vital as to who his father was, he accepts the statement of his mother and believes it all his life. In the same manner you must accept the authority of the Vedas (sacred scriptures of the Hindus) regarding your Divine father. (SSS Vol.14, p. 355)
It is in the 32nd stanza of the sixth chapter of Gita we are told how the internal cleansing or purification should be affected. Good qualities like kindness; like compassion, like prema, like sacrifice make a man deserving of being called a devotee or a Jnani or one who has attained vairagya or detachment with external world. (SSB 1972, p. 58)
The Atma is near and far inside and outside, still and moving. He who knows this truth is worthy of the name Jnani. Jnani, who is aware, sees the Atma in all beings and all beings as Atma. He sees all beings as the same, and perceives no distinction or difference. So he saves himself from duality. Jnani who has tasted that vision will not be agitated by the blows of fortune or the enticements of the senses. He sees all beings as himself, having his own innate identity; he is free bondage, from Dharma and Adharma, and the needs and urges of the body. He is ‘Swayamprakasha’. (UV, p. 10)
The Jnani will have no trace of hatred in him, he will love all beings; he will not be contaminated by the ego, he will act as he speaks. (JV, p. 36)
It is enough if the mind is always fixed onParamatma, if the Lord is meditated upon without a break. That will cleanse the mind; the delusion clogging it will disappear. This by itself comprises moksha, for what is moksha but mohakshaya, the decline of delusion? A person who has achieved this mohakshaya will attainBrahmattva, the state of Brahman, howsoever he might die. Such a person is called a ‘jnani’. (GV, p. 167)
The Shastras, which are texts supplementary to the Vedas, declare that God resides wherever six excellences are evident; Enthusiasm (utsaha), determination (sahasam), courage (dhairya), good-sense (sadbuddhi), strength (shakti) and adventure (parakrama). The inaugural prayer of man has to be directed to God (Ganapati) to gain these six gifts, which can purify consciousness and reveal the Atma. One has to undertake the discovery of one’s atmic core, with bravery in the heart; this is no exercise for cowards. Wicked persons, waverers in faith, doubting hearts, woeful countenances, are destined to go through life as rogis (sick persons) and not yogis, (dwellers in Atma). This is the distinguishing mark that separates the ‘wise’ (jnani) from the ‘unwise’ (ajnani). Krishna spoke, laughing with an outburst of joy; Arjuna listened while over-powered by sorrow. The jnani is always full of joy; he laughs. The ajnani is afflicted with sorrow; he weeps. (SV, p. 190)
The jnani is supremely happy by himself, without the need to be dependent on other things. He finds karma in akarma and akarma in karma. He may be engaged in karma but he is not affected in the least. He has no eye on the fruit of actions. (GV, p. 85)
The jnani is not mastered by the dualities of joy and grief, victory and defeat, gain or loss he is Dwandatita. He scorns hatred and never allows it to affect him. Both the Swarupa and the Svabhava of the Atma guarantee that it is unaffected. It is asanga. It is uninfluenced by anything that is not Atma. It has neither birth nor death, hunger nor thirst, grief nor delusion. (GV, p. 88)
He is ever content; he is content with whatever happens to him, well or ill, for he is convinced that the Lord’s Will must prevail. His mind is unshaken and steady; he is ever jubilant. (GV, p. 88)
You become a Jnani when you are full of virtue. (DBG, p. 179)
The inner world is not easily accessible to manas the outer world is. Perhaps, only one among many one in a million, does contact and win this inner Atmic Reality through the inward vision. He is the Wise Man (the Jnani). The person born with a sense of the true Mission of human life has to gain the goal, the Goal of ananda, the fundamental external ananda. That is the Supreme attainment that renders life valid, meaningful and worthwhile. (Sutra Vahini, p. 52)