A person who declares himself as Self-realized is not Self-realized, because, he unaware of the fact that he is not the Self but the Self is the Soul.
A person who realized the ultimate truth or Brahman will never declare he is Self-realized. If a person says he is Self-realized he is still ignorant.
If you think you are self-realized, but you still say "I," and if you feel the ‘Self’ is the ‘I’, you are not a Gnani. You are simply ignorant of your accumulated dualistic intellectual knowledge accumulated from here and there.
Upanishad says ~ "He who thinks he knows, does not know." This means that to know anything implies a second, an object of knowledge, hence duality, i.e. no Gnana.
Ashtavakra Samhita: ~ "The man of knowledge (Gnani), though living like an ordinary man, is contrary to him and only those like him understand his state.
A person who realized the ultimate truth or Brahman or God in truth will throw off his religious robe and all religious identity and lives like a commoner. He never identifies himself as Gnani nor does he identify himself as superior to others. He only shares his knowledge with fellow seekers.
A Gnani never identifies himself as a Guru or a Yogi or someone disciple. The one who accepts himself as a Guru or someone’s disciple is not a Gnani.
There is no liberation for a person of mere bookish -knowledge, howsoever well-read in the philosophy of Vedanta, so long as one does not give up the false identification with the body, sense organs, etc., which are unreal.
Even friends and family members of a Gnani will not know him as the Gnani. Due to ignorance, people will not be able to recognize a Gnani. Outwardly the Gnani behaves as an ordinary person behaves. A Gnani talks and jokes like others, but he is not understood as he really is. People may regard him as an exceptional person, but only a few can recognize him as a Gnani.
Sage Sri, Sankara himself said: ~ A Gnani "bears no outward mark of a holy man" (Stanza 539).
Thus, it proves that the intellectual pundits who declare themselves they are Self-realized, the religious Gurus and yogis are not Gnanis because they identified themselves as holy people. : ~ Santthosh Kumaar
