A short time ago I asked a precious pal of mine whether he thought Self-Realized souls in human bodies know they’re perfected. He chewed on that question from 17:43 until his response came at 18.59, after which time his answer was, “Yes.” He went on to explain that he thinks they “just know” even if they don’t fully understand it or recognize it from birth. He brought up that some are simply wise beyond their years and than many, after they realize this, would perhaps still not think they are “perfected.”
I think I can agree to all that, although I might have originally been going in a different direction.
A long time ago I read somewhere that, “The eye itself cannot see itself. Brahman cannot see Brahman.” I’m sure if that were googled, the source might be found, but I’m not doing that right now. At any rate, it makes sense, right? When was the last time your eyeball was able to see itself (without the use of some kind of reflective surface)? Pointing out that Brahman cannot see Itself, to me, ties back into the Impersonality of It and even of how I’ve written about God being love, but not being loving.
In the book I’m reading currently, “The Call of Spirituality,” the question of whether a Master can know he is a Master is asked. The conclusion reached is that when a Master reaches his Master’s state, he knows his Master – but doesn’t know his own state – which happens to be pretty well one and the same (yoga). I think in this situation the loss of traits like ego and samskaras are part of the reason why one can achieve elevated states and not be filled with the knowledge of that achievement. So what, then?
Part of the answer to the aforementioned question is that the Master can look “downward” to his own disciples to gain perspective on his own state (which is like that of his own Master). Chariji indicates, “By seeing our Master we come to know what he is and what he looks like. He can know his own condition when one of his disciples reaches that stage. Therefore, after understanding his own Master, the Master understands himself.” Surely this phenomenon accounts, at least in part, for why we often reference our gurus as mirrors. To help put this into an understandable perspective, a girl understands the qualities of a mother (who and what a mother is) by watching her own mother (or even another mother). But to know about motherhood, she has to give birth, become a mother, and experience it.
I think this kind of implies a hierarchy of sorts where to know your Goal and to progress you must look onward and upward toward That which you’re reaching and progressing. But to actually know and maybe even measure your progress, you have to look downward – so to speak. Perhaps you can’t know the heights you’ve reached without looking to see how far from the ground you are.
Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti
Sthapati Samanvayam 
There is a fine distinction between what you’ve reported, and what this bloke you asked the question to actually said. He said that the person would not “think of himself as” perfected. Different from someone not thinking they are perfected. Very VERY fine distinction, I know, but its important to me..I mean this bloke. What I mean is the perfected one would not go around announcing himself as such. It would be such a natural state there would be no need to point it out. As you often say, the proof would be in the pudding.
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Patr of your comment kind of doesn’t make sense to me. I do agree with you that it’s not likely to be something that’s announced by that person. But can you explain more of the difference you see between not thinking “of” oneself as perfected and not thinking oneself is perfected? That is the only difference I see between the two things you’re talking about, which as far as I can tell, aren’t really two things.
Please offer additional clarification on this distinction.
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