Comment: I love this quote from Tripura Rahasya from the jnana kandam in the chapter Variety of Sages 109-12. The vasanas not inimical to realisation are not weeded out by the best class of Jnanis because they cannot seek new ones to crowd the old out. Therefore the old ones continue until they are exhausted and thus you find among them some highly irritable, some lustful and others pious and dutiful, and so on.
James: I like this quote but it needs a bit of commentary. To whit: Actually jnanis are free so they are free to seek out new vasanas, to not seek out new vasanas or to neither seek nor not seek vasanas because “they” are actually the Self. The old vasanas continue to outpicture but they don’t affect a jnani because vasanas are only apparently real and a jnani is actually reality itself, which is always unassociated with vasanas, desires and actions. I think the “best” class of jnanis, in so far as they are a class, like Ramana, are those who make an effort to purify rajasic and tamasic vasanas for the sake of themselves, the teaching, Isvara, the teacher, and the world.
This comment assumes that moksa is only firm Self knowledge, the fifth stage of sadhana, not tripti, perfect satisfaction, the sixth stage, which is achieved by nididyasana. After his realization, Ramana spent twenty five years in caves doing nididyasana, before he consented to make himself available to the public, which accounts for his outsized impact on the spiritual world, not his Self realization, which is the same for everyone in so far as there is only one already realized Self and only one way to realize it, which is accomplished by the removal of one’s ignorance, by a means of knowledge.
