If somebody says, ‘I am a jnani. I am an enlightened person,’ then who is claiming that? Generally, you achieve Realization as a gradual process of intense continuous sadhana

Annamalai Swami

Question: I want to ask Swamiji about his own experience. Was his own experience a single event, an explosion of knowledge? Or did it happen more gradually, in a more subtle way? 

Annamalai Swami: It was my experience that through continuous sadhana I gradually relaxed into the Self. It was a gradual process. 

Question: So it is not necessarily something that happens with a big bang? 

Annamalai Swami: It is not something new that suddenly comes. It is eternally there, but it is covered by so much. It has to be rediscovered. 

Question: But do some people explode into That? I was with a man this morning who claims to be realised. He came here. Do you remember him? He said he had an experience of exploding into it, and that the experience of the Self, he says, stayed with him ever since 1982. 

Annamalai Swami [laughing]: If he says ‘I don’t know myself’ or if he claims ‘I have known myself,’ both are statements to laugh at. Because you are That. You can be That, but there is nothing to say about it. If somebody says, ‘I am a jnani. I am an enlightened person,’ then who is claiming that? 

...Constant meditation is the only way. If you bring the light into your room, the darkness immediately goes away. You have to see that the light is not put out. It has to be continuously burning so that there is no darkness. Until you get firmly established in the Self, you have to continue with your meditation. Doubts take possession of you only if you forget yourself.