Bhagwad Gita - Post 237

Verse 55

By devotion he knows Me in truth, what and who I am; and knowing Me in truth, he forthwith enters into the Supreme.

The Lord says, “A true devotee knows what kind of person I am, what kind of Reality I am”. This means knowing what God is, what is the characteristic of God, and what one actually attains after reaching God. All these things will become clear when the devotion intensifies. Then, one enters into the Absolute. 

In the path of Jnana, the student is taught about God (Brahman) and the teacher takes the student through Upanishads and teaches that the God is:-

* All pervading pure consciousness, non-dual, unborn, decay-less, causeless, self-luminous, indivisible, unchanging, destitute of all the differences caused by the limiting adjuncts,

*       support, source, womb, basis, and substratum of everything,

*    The ruler of all beings; he knows that I am the Supreme Purusha, the controller of Maya, and that this world is a mere appearance.

A conceptual appreciation of God’s existence is different from an appreciation of His Existence as He is in Himself. 

This is possible only if one totally annihilates one’s  egoistic individuality, does  not conceive God as if He is something outside him, and does not go on insisting on his  own individual existence. 

And, in pure devotion, para bhakti, the bhakta may not be aware of all the above but the devotion ultimately culminates into that state where, all the above is actually experienced by the devotee turned seer and the experience is not of God outside him but it is all within.

How this happens?

When God takes possession of all things, Bhakta’s existence ceases to be and he is no more there, and then it is that he has entered into the Absolute. 

The entering into the very substance of God is the final aim of life, which is possible only when one ceases to be, by a total abolition of one’s encrustations (hard coating) of physical and psychical personality. Then one’s soul merges in God.

The act of knowing and the act of entering are not two distinct acts. Knowing is becoming. Knowing is attaining Self-Knowledge. To know That is to become That. Entering is knowing or becoming That. Entering is the attainment of Self-Knowledge or Self Realization. Knowing and entering are synonymous terms. 

It is very difficult to understand or comprehend transcendental spiritual matters. The teachers use various terms or expressions, analogies, similes, parables, stories, etc. to make the aspirant grasp the matter clearly and lucidly. Words are imperfect and languages are defective. They cannot fully express the inner spiritual experiences. The teacher somehow or other expresses to the students or aspirants, these spiritual ideas. 

The aspirant himself will have to realize the Self. That is beyond the reach of words of expressions or analogies of similes. How can there be similes for that non-dual Brahman. These words are a sort of help or prop for the aspirants to lean upon in the beginning to understand spiritual matters. When he realizes the Self, these words are of no value to him. He himself becomes an embodiment of knowledge.

Mundaka Upanishad says,

Whoever knows this Brahman in which the universe in all its vastness is fixed, and which shines more radiantly than the Sun, and those people who are devoted to such a person without any kind of earthly desire, go beyond the chances of coming back to this world by rebirth.

Taittriya Upanishad says,

Love.