What Does the Self-Realized State Look Like?

The Self-realized State
from

Jnaneshwar’s Amritanubhava

What Does it Look Like?

Experience of Immortality, Ramesh S. Balsekar


The “King of Saints” was Jnaneshwar (?1271-1293), who, while living only twenty-two years, made an indelible mark on the whole of Hindu spirituality. Before Jnaneshwar’s time, the scriptures of India were in the secret language of Sanskrit and completely unavailable to the lower classes. Breaking from tradition, Jnaneshwar not only translated the central Sanskrit text, the Bhagavad Cita, into the common language of Marathi but added a magnificent commentary which expounds the complete path of yoga and spiritual practice. His commentary, the Jnaneshwari, still stands among the greatest spiritual works ever written.

 

[ Sculpture at Jnaneshvar samadhi shrine, Alandi ]

Jnaneshvar (Jnaneshwar, Jnanadev, Jnanadeva) ( Lord of Knowledge )

( 1275 -1296-7 ) ( 1271-1293 ) [ Namdev, Muktabai, Sopan, Nivritti, Jnaneshwar, Krishna, Rukmini

 

Jnaneshvar was a great Siddha, mystic and poetic genius of Maharashtra, India who died at the age of 21 in enstasy. His spiritual roots were in both the nath and bhakti traditions and listed his lineage as Shiva, Shakti, Matsyendra, Gorakhnath, Gahini and Nivritti (his elder brother). At the age of fifteen (1290) he is said to have delivered ex tempore the nine-thousand verses of his poetic commentary on the Bhagavad Gita; Jnaneshvari (Jnaneshwari) or “Goddess of Wisdom”  [ also called Bhava-Artha-Dipika (“Light on the meaning of Being”)].

Jnaneshvar’s teaching was non-dualist, saying that the mainifest world is a “sport” (vilasa) of the Absolute; the Love of the singular Reality, and regarded bhakti (devotion), the means to liberation.  

excerpts

from Jnaneshwar’s Gita : A Rendering of the Jnaneshwari Swami Kripananda

from Jnaneshvari [Bhavarthadipika] by Sri Jnanadeva. Translated by V.G. Pradhan and edited by H.M. Lambert excerpt from XV. The Yoga of the Supreme Person (purushottamayoga)

from Swami Muktananda: Debt to the Guru  

links

A visit to Jnaneshvar’s samadhi site, Alandi, Maharashtra, India (excerpt from Swami Durgananda’s pilgrimage with Baba Muktananda in 1978)

The Mystic Poets of Maharashtra ; from The Mountain Path; (at the “Knowledge of Reality” site)

Jnanadeva Giri’s biography

Jnanadeva ( Glossary J ) HERE-NOW4U Online Magazine  

bibliography

The Poet-Saints of Maharashtra special issue of Darshan magazine #80 (November, 1993) SYDA Foundation

Jnaneshvar: The Life and Works of the Celebrated 13th Century Indian Mystic-Poet (Classics of Mystical Literature Series) Abhayananda, et al / Paperback / Published 1997 

Jnaneshwar: The Guru’s Guru R.D. Ranade / Paperback / Published 1994 

Jnaneshwar’s Gita: A Rendering of the Jnaneshwari

Swami Kripananda / Hardcover / Published 1989

Jnaneshwari, by Jnandeva Paperback / Published 1980 

Bhavanha-Dipika: Otherwise Known As Jnaneshwari Sri Jnanadeva. Translated by Ramchandra Keshar Bhagwat. Madras: Samata Books, 1979.

The Philosophy of Jnanadeva: As Gleaned from the Amrtanubhava by B. P. Bahirat. Third edition, 1984

Sri Jnanadeva’s Amritanubhava, with Changadeva Pasashti Translated from Marathi by Ramchandra Keshav Bhagwat

Sri Jnanadeva’s Bhavarta Dipika, otherwise known as Jnaneshyari Translated by Ramchandra Keshav Bhagwat

Experience of immortality : English rendering of Jnaneshwar’s “Amritanubhava” by Ramesh Balsekar (student of Nisargadatta Maharaj, of the Nav Nath Sampradaya). Published by Advaita Press

Gatha : Garland of divine flowers : selected devotional lyrics of Saint Jnanesvara by P.V. Bobde ; published by Motilal.


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