A person who realized the ultimate truth or Brahman will never declare he is Self-realized.+

A person who declares himself as self-realized is not Self-realized, because, he is 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 the facts because of your accumulated dualistic intellectual knowledge accumulated from here and there.

Upanishad say ~ "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 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 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  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 Self-realized, the religious Gurus and yogis are not Gnanis because they identified themselves as holy people.  

Remember:~ 

The Knower of the ultimate truth or Brahman or God is Brahma Gnani. A Brahma Gnani has realized the knowledge beyond the form, time, and space. 

Many people are struck with awe or reverence at the outer indications of renunciation, and thus, blindly accept a religious Guru or God-men to be a Gnani. The two have no connection. Because he has no wife, no family, and no possessions" they think a man who has merely repressed these desires as though these things had anything to do with the wisdom he is a mere religious man.  

People need to be more competent to judge who is a Gnani between Godmen, intellectuals, and yogis. A Gnani is neither Godmen, nor a yogi, nor an intellectual.

A Gnani vision of the world, in which he exists, is, beyond time and space, embracing the Soul, ultimate reality. The universe in which you exist is within the Soul.

The man who speaks about religious God, scriptures, and religion, is not a Gnani. A yogi who speaks about yoga is not a Gnani. 

A God-man who indulges in miracle is not a Gnani. An intellectual who argues on his own speculated theories is not a Gnani.

A Gnani is the one who shares knowledge and guides people towards the source of the mind (physical existence) is real Gnani. A Gnani never claims himself a teacher nor does he accept anyone as a disciple.

Sage Sankara was a Gnani. Most of the modern masters are not Gnani. And you have to understand that to be a Gnani is one thing; to be a Guru is totally different.

Out of a million people perhaps one is a Gnani. Most of the Self- realized decide to remain silent – seeing the difficulty, that whatever they have realized is impossible to convey in any possible way to others; seeing that not only is it difficult to convey, it is bound to be misunderstood too.

A Gnani never claims himself as a Gnani, he guides the seekers, not posing himself as a Guru, and he does not force his wisdom on others.

People cannot distinguish between reasoning and intellect as a Gnani does. Egocentric reason applied only to practical life within the practical world is called logic, intellect.

Soulcentric reason is the Spiritualistic reason is necessary to unfold the truth of the whole.

A Gnani knows both egocentric reason (logic) and Soulcentric reason. He uses the egocentric reason (logic) in practical life within the practical world and uses the Soulcentric reason to know the truth beyond for, time and space. 

Logic is necessary for practical purposes. But the logic cannot be applied to discover the truth because logic implies duality and the ultimate truth is based on the Nondualistic perspective.

 A Gnani is not a religious person. A Gnani does not depend on the scriptures. A Gnani is the fountainhead of Gnana. The Advaitic Gnana is the only indication to recognize a Gnani.

Sage Sankara says the transparent Truth of the ‘Self’, which is hidden by the illusion, is to be attained through the instructions of a knower of Brahman, (Gnani) then why you are sticking a Guru who is not a Gnani.

For Gnani, the world is an illusion. Viewed from the absolute, there's neither birth nor life nor death, neither the appearance nor the disappearance, neither the production nor the destruction, neither the bondage nor the liberation. There's none who neither seeks for freedom nor is there any who is liberated - this is the highest truth.

A Gnani knows that there's neither unity nor plurality - the world is neither one nor many. Just as a piece of rope is mistaken for a snake, the Atman is mistaken for this diverse world. The duality is an illusory appearance and the non-dual Atman is the real truth.

Manduka Upanishads:~Even the Gods cannot find out who is a Gnani because he bears no external mark. Neither nudity nor the yellow robe has anything to do with him.

A Gnani cannot have the idea of renouncing the world or giving up something of the practical world because that would connote the idea of duality. Duality is merely an illusion from the ultimate standpoint. Knowing no second thing at all, there remains nothing to be given up.

Sage Sankara:~ "The knower of Brahman (Self-realized or Gnani) wears no signs.

The one who identifies himself as a swami, a Guru or yogi, is not a Gnani. A Gnani never identifies himself as a swami, Guru, pundit or yogi. Swami, Guru, pundit or yogi belongs to the religious or the yogic path not to the path of wisdom. : ~Santthosh Kumaar