the jnani path

It has been made explicit that the jnani path is not that of the devotee, or of the occultist. It is a journey to one's true self, most usually starting with doubt and enquiry, progressing through the shedding of false conceptions of the self, until the simple and peaceful perspective is attained, the perspective of non-duality.

'The jnani path takes the individual back to where they were. It is a journey home involving the understanding of truth about human identity. Its discipline involves the subjugation of the imaginative faculty to the point where it is perfectly aligned with the world as such. Western philosophy came to the conclusion that this is impossible. Western philosophy never came across jnani.'

The jnani aspirant has some of the qualities of the warrior (courage and confidence), some of the qualities of a scientist (enquiry and rigour), and some of the qualities of a child (receptivity and wonder).

A full picture of the jnani path takes time to build up because it has never been discussed in the West. The section 'selected Masters' describes the lives and teachings of a number of great jnanis in addition to a few selected bhaktis whose lives and teachings are relevant. The section 'jnani and the West' attempts to pinpoint the historical accidents that led to the loss of jnani even as a concept in the West and to show how this may have led to the origins of science.

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