Can the self be realized without realizing Krishna?
Can we realize ourselves as that we are not the body with the soul without the self practicing bhakti or realizing Krishna is it that to see the self we need the light and the light source and a mirror there are different frames of looking at this just like if we consider going to heavens practicing karmakanda and going to heavens now is it good is it bad somebody is impious it is good somebody can become devotional and they go to heaven that is not so good that is bad in fact so from the bhakti perspective vijayanachakritakura explained that there is some there has to be some element of bhakti for any of the paths to give the result that bhakti may not be specifically directed towards Krishna but that bhakti is what gives them results in other paths also so there is the bhakti perspective of things and there is the we could say generically non-bhakti perspective of things now because bhakti is the ultimate conclusion of the bhagavad-gita sarva-dharman-prasthiti mam ekam saranam vraja so the bhakti perspective is most important but people different people are going to perceive things according to their level and the vedic texts also give different paths so in the in the process of spiritual progression spiritual growth some people can understand that they are not that they are something more than their body so for example you can so people may not get a clear sense of what exactly I am but in my book on reincarnation demystifying reincarnation I have given quotes from people all over the world from all the inhabited continents people who thinkers who accepted the concept of the soul who have recognized that there is something more to life than their bodies and they felt that now Pythagoras was a person Pythagoras it said even it's even said that he remembered his previous lives not just one but many previous lives so it's not that spiritual knowledge is the monopoly of any tradition at the same time there are degrees or levels of spiritual knowledge there are different depths of spiritual understanding through sattva guna knowledge comes and Prabhupada also writes in the parpot in the bhagavad-gita in the bhagavatam how when samsaya yatha viparyasa he talks characteristics of intelligence are talked about buddhi and then he says how by introspection one can understand that one can become doubtful about the bodily conception and one can understand oneself to be something other than the body so there he doesn't bring in Krishna he just gives some thought exercises by which one can one can get some intellectual understanding that my identity is not physical so now the intellectual understanding or even the experiential sense say for example somebody gets a near-death experience in which they see themselves floating out of their body they do understand that I am different from the body so now whether that understanding is life transforming or whether that understanding is even placed in a philosophical context or not that will depend on how they follow through after the experience how much do they try to gain a clearer understanding but both from the intellectual conceptualizing point of view as well as the experience point of view it's possible that one may realize one may perceive the difference between the body and the soul once they perceive oneself as non-physical even if one is not at all a devotee but as I said there are levels of understanding and also there are levels of experience so to experience oneself as a soul who is a part of Krishna to experience oneself as a not just something different from the body but as a spark of spirit as a part of Krishna so that is something which will require more committed practice and different yogas can also lead forward somebody may just sing about Krishna's names say somebody even some other tradition there are Muslims say who may sing songs about Allah Christian saints Saint Francis of Assisi he was complete he followed very high standards of renunciation and simplicity although he was from a fabulously wealthy family one of their principles was that they would not even use plates so they would eat actually during some phase of their life they would eat food that was just kept on the ground of course they would eat food which was like a dough or something which would not stick to mud so much but they followed extreme vows of abnegation so and many days he just survived without food he would fast for a long time without food without water so he had that understanding that there's something beyond it may not be a clear philosophical understanding that I'm not the body and the soul or I'm a specific entity called the soul he understood that my life is more than the body something like that was there so I would say that rather than saying whether it is possible or not we can say two things that a deeper level of understanding a deeper level of realization are possible when we have a broader context for understanding and realizing and that context is provided by bhakti wisdom and bhakti practice otherwise also one may get some sense even some intellectual sense and some experience or realization also that I'm not the body but that will not be very deep and of course for us sadhakas it is much easier to practice bhakti and connect ourselves with Krishna than to try to intellectually constantly remind ourselves and act as if we are not the body so just Krishna also says that not so much that you are not the body Krishna says situate yourself on the spiritual platform in 3.43 says that situate yourself on the spiritual platform thus you can conquer selfishness so when we see this way we can all move forward in our life so rather than making it a one zero kind of thing we can see it as a continuum and some level of understanding of one's non-physical nature can come through through one's past karma through one's introspection through one's cultural surroundings through one's some experiences one gets but that will not be a very thorough understanding of oneself.