Unknowability of the self

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Srinivas Sista wrote:

>I was just kidding about Bankei. There have been cases where the person
>was enlightened long before they actually found out from others &
>scriptures that their state is what is refered to as enlightened.

There have indeed been people who were enlightened and found out later
about scriptural statements about enlightenment. Ramana Maharshi was one
such example. Another such person is HH abhinava vidyAtIrtha
mahAsvAmigaL, the previous pontiff of the Sringeri Mutt. He remarked to
a disciple that when his guru was teaching him the upanishhad-s he
thought "Oh, the shruti is saying the same thing I have already
`experienced'". However note that neither of them toured the country
asking people whether they were enlightened and then remarking that they
found no enlightened man. A man who goes around doing such a thing is
(a) obviously not realized (may be close to it), or (b) is under some
mental delusion or (c) is trying to prove that he is "cool" by
"exposing" the lack of GYAni-s. I would strongly suspect (b) or (c).

Ramakrishnan.