Yoga Overview and Jnana Yoga

Yoga is defined as योग: चित्त-वृत्ति निरोध: which translates to “thought arising stoppage” and means the ability to get to a state of thoughts not rising. Thoughts rise from the sense of self or identity; hence yoga is the ability to negate our sense of identity. Yoga is a cognate of the English word “Yoke”. Here, yoking is the ability to integrate our sense of Identity with our actions.

Here, we need to differentiate 2 major forms of yoking;

\ The yoking of Siva (our identity) with Shakti (our manifestation)

\ The yoking of svadharma (our conditioning) with svabhaava (our behavior).

Obviously, the latter is more relevant because it is the yoking which we use regularly. But it is important to realize that evolution in the latter will lead to progress in the latter.

\ The measure of success is our state of awareness of which there are 4, but of relevance are just 3 – Jagrat (awakened or transactional state), Swapna (dream or image state) and Sushupti (intuition). Please refer my blog on measurements – link given herein - http://yoga-shala.blogspot.in/2016/03/measurement-of-situational-awareness.html

\ There are four major schools of Yoga (Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga and Raja Yoga.

Jnana Yoga: To understand Jnana (knowledge), one should first understand its opposite, ajnana (ignorance). It is important to understand that in jnana yoga, the opposite of knowledge is not falsehood, but ignorance. Ignorance is that which covers the true state of one’s identity or self and presents to one an image of reality called Maya or perception. When maya is dispelled, the true state of one’s identity is revealed.

The characteristics of development along the path of Jnana yoga are – viveka (discrimination), vairagyam (emotional balance), satsanga (discussion with similar minded people) and mumukshutva (extreme desire for liberation). Obviously, the accent is on constant effort at peeling away the layers of ignorance by constant application of information, knowledge and company.

The tools for development are shravana (hearing), manana (thinking) and nidhidyasana (reflecting).

How does Jnana yoga work? How is it implemented?

Jnana yoga is possibly the simplest yoga to implement, with least number of variables to control. The concept is that by isolating impermanent stimulus, we should be able to experience that which is permanent. The starting point is discrimination and weeding out of all thoughts which are impermanent. Obviously, many of these negations will require tampering with our conditioning, resulting in strong emotional backlash. This requires a building up of both, an emotional reservoir and a strong drive to continue despite the pain of loss of dearly held views.

To build up the ability to discriminate and weed out impermanent stimuli while simultaneously strengthening emotional intelligence, one needs to maintain relationships with likeminded people – getting motivated by their experiences and feeding off their enthusiasm, reading, reflecting and putting into practice the changes to our conditioning which strengthen the ability to say “Not this” or “neti” in Sanskrit.

The best role model of a modern day jana yogi is Bhagawan Ramana Maharishi who has left an enormous amount of usable information on how jnana yoga may be followed.

What you should know after reading this blog;

Ø  What is yoga? How does one reach the final state?

Ø  What is Jnana Yoga?

Ø  What are the different types of yoga?

Ø  What are the fundamentals of Jnana Yoga?

Ø  How does on integrate Jnana Yoga into daily life?

Ø  How does one cope with the stress of negation?

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Agama and Purana

Agama: are a series of methods and instructions for rituals, yoga and temple construction. They differ from the vedic teachings in that while yagna or sacrifice in Veda does not require any physical manifestation such as idols, agama yagna requires pooja and idols as a means of worship.

Agamas can be divided into;

\ Shaiva agamas – 28 agama texts detailing the worship of Shiva as ultimate reality covering 4 major and 28 minor schools – 4 major schools being Kapila, Kalamukha, Pashupata and Shaiva.

\ Vaishnava agama – 108 agama texts detailing the worship of Vishnu as ultimate reality and grouped into four categories – Vaikhanasa, Pancharatra, Pratishthasara and Vijnanalalita of which Pancharatra is considered most important.

\ Shakta agamas – 77 agama texts detailing the worship of Shakti as ultimate reality.

Each agama consists of;

ü  Jnana pada or vidya pada – covering concept, doctrine, philosophical and spiritual basis and knowledge of moksha.

ü  Yoga pada – covers the physical and mental discipline required to reach moksha

ü  Kriya pada – covers the process of building temples, carving idols, initiation ceremonies and performing rituals etc.

ü  Charya pada – covers the rules of conduct, process of observing rites, rituals, festivals and prayaschittas.

In addition to the above agamas, Sourya and Ganapatya agamas also exist as minor agamas.

Purana: Purana means that which belongs to ancient times. Puranas are a branch of Sanskrit literature which deal with history, genealogy, tradition and religion and are generally written in the form of stories – dating between 500 BC and 1000 AD.

Puranas are supposed to have the following 5 sections;

ü  Sarga – creation of the world.

ü  Pratisarga – creation of subsequent creatures and secondary entities.

ü  Vamsa – Genealogy of Gods.

ü  Manvantara – Genealogy of Man

ü  Vamsanucharitam – History of individual dynasties.

Generally Puranas can be split in three main branches: Maha or Upapurana, Sthalapurana, Skandapurana and kulapurana. In Tamil Nadu, they have Siva Purana written in Tamil.

There are eighteen Maha or main Puranas and an equal number of subsidiary Puranas or Upa-Puranas. The main Puranas are:

ü  Vishnu Purana, Naradiya Purana, Srimad Bhagavata Purana, Garuda (Suparna) Purana,

ü  Padma Purana, Varah Purana, Brahma Purana, Brahmanda Purana, Brahma Vaivarta Purana, Markandeya Purana, Bhavishya Purana, Vamana Purana, Matsya Purana, Kurma Purana, Linga Purana, Siva Purana, Skanda Purana and Agni Purana.

What you should know after reading this blog;

Ø  What is agama as opposed to yagna?

Ø  How many types of agama’s are there?

Ø  Detail each agama.

Ø  What are the sections or pada of each agama?

Ø  What are puranas?

Ø  How many puranas exist?

Ø  What are the elements/ sections of the puranas?

Ø  What are the most important puranas?

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Shad-Darshana and Brahma-sutra

Aasthika (orthodox philosophy) is orthodox school of philosophical tradition as opposed to Naasthika (that which does not accept Aasthika). Aasthika school can also be called Shad-darshana (six visions). It comprises six schools – Nyaya (logical), Vaisheshika (understanding the nature of elements), Samkya (the understanding of tattvas, the union of prakriti and purusha along with the impact of the gunas), Yoga (yoking of one’s identity with his or her manifestation), Mimamsa (correct application of rituals) and Vedanta (understanding the brahman, the soul, liberation and the various ways to get there).

\ Nyaya (logical reasoning) – consists of 16 padhartha (categories) – pramana (valid acquisition of knowledge), prameya (objects of valid knowledge), samsaya (doubt), prayojana (aim), drshtanta (example), siddantha (conclusion), avayava (component level analysis), tarka (logical reasoning), nirnaya (resolution), vaada (discussion), jalpa (negotiating), vitanda (complaining), hetvabhasa (fallacious argument), chala (unsteady), jati (sophisticated rebuttal), nigrahasthana (point of defeat).

Nyaya school allows four sources of valid thought – pratyaksha (perception), anumana (inference), upamana or comparison, sabda (testimony or valid source).

\ Vaisheshika (atomism) – this is the logic that all material is formed by atomic combination of four substances – earth, water, fire and air. Vaisheshika postulates that all experiences can be derived from dravya (substance – construct of atoms, their number and arrangement); guna (attribute – such as rupa (form), rasa (taste), etc. totaling to 24 in all); karma (activitie) – which like guna are dependent on dravya, but unlike guna where each material has a definite purpose, karma is transient in nature; samanya (common properties which join substances); vishesha (uniqueness) which defines each substance; samavaya (internal dynamics of a union) examines the cause and effect which affects the relationship between substances and their environment.

Vaisheshika allows only two sources of valid thought – pratyakha (perception) and anumana (inference)

\ Samkya (rationalization) – Samkya is a rationalist school which delves into the relationship between the purusha and prakriti along with the dynamics of various gunas (sattva – harmony or balance, raajas or passionate and tamas or obdurate or confused).

Samkhya school requires three sources of valid thought for a theory to be accepted – pratyakha (perception), anumana (inference) and sabda (testimony or valid source).

\ Yoga – Yoga is based on the Ashtanga Yoga as propounded by Patanjali.

It a rationalist school which requires three sources of valid thought for a theory to be accepted – pratyakha (perception), anumana (inference) and sabda (testimony or valid source). It is handled in depth in another blog –links are given at the head of this blog.

\ Mimamsa– also called PoorvaMimamsa or karma kandha, this means reflection or critical investigation. This school is the study of the Vedas and then translate to everyday usage in the form of Dharma, Karma and rituals.

Mimamsa considers five sources of valid thought – pratyaksha (perception), anumana (inference), upamana or comparison, arthapathi (derivation from circumstances) and sabda (testimony or valid source).

Vedanta – is also called Uttara Mimamsa (higher enquiry) or jnanakandais a collection of divergent philosophies grouped together, drawing as inspiration from the Upanishads, Brahma-sutras, Bhagawat Gita etc. There are many schools of Vedanta, best known among them are Advaita, Dvaita, Vashishtadvaita. From here, the various schools of worship such as Shaiva, Shakta, Vaishnava, Ganapatya and Kaumaraa and Sourya emerged.

Brahma Sutra – is a text which summarizes and systemizes the spiritual and philosophical ideas of the Upanishads. It consists of 555 verses in 4 chapters, each chapter being divided into 4 parts. Each part is further subdivided into sections or adhikaranas of which there are 189, covering the following topics; Vishaya (topic of the section), Vismaya (the issue at hand/ doubts/ problem statement), purva-parksha (introduction to the solution), siddhanta (theory and arguments, solution and concept/ doctrine), and samgati or threading of the arguments to form a cohesive and comprehensive argument. This sutra was likely to have been composed between 300 BC and 500 AD because, in addition to trying to give a metaphysical meaning to Brahman, it also rebuts the philosophical positions of Buddhist and Jain tenets.

What you should know after reading this blog;

Ø  What is asthika as opposed to nasthika?

Ø  What are Shad darshanas and what are their elements?

Ø  What are the various valid and acceptable sources of proof for a vision?

Ø  What is Vedanta?

Ø  What is Brahma sutras? What is their significance?

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Vedanta - End of the Vedas - the Upanishads

Upanishad means “sitting at the feet of”. Upanishads are considered to be texts which philosophically follow the Vedas, hence are also called Vedanta (end of the Vedas).

Some features of the Upanishads are:

\ Upanishads are part of a collection of material called Vedanta (Veda + anta = end), meaning end of the Vedas.

\ All Upanishads deal more or less with the same subject. They explain the nature of the Brahman, the atman (soul), moksha (salvation) and the method of reaching it.

\ They are all generally believed to have been composed between 1000 BC and 1000 AD. Since, written scriptures were not common at the time, the Upanishads rely heavily on Sruti (speech/ verse).

\ Since, the most important Upanishads or mukhya Upanishads can be traced to the same period (1000 BC to 500 BC), it is possible to assume that most of the authors were contemporaries and found different methods to reach the same goal.

\ Also, Buddhism was founded around the same period (Gautama Buddha – between 580 BC and 400 BC) as was Jainism as founded by Mahavira (between 480 BC and 408 BC), hence there is likely overlap of concepts and practices between the three major philosophical schools.

\ Though more than 108 Upanishads are known to exist, 12 are considered important of principal Upanishads (Mukhya Upanishad). These are:

1.    Isa Upanishad, part of Shukla (White) Yajurveda – approximately 17-18 verses.

2.    Kena Upanishad, part of Talavakara Brahmana of Samaveda – 28 main + 6 epilogue = 34 verses

3.    Katha Upanishad, part of Krishna (Black) Yajurveda – divided into two chapters, each with three subdivisions.

4.    Prashna Upanishad, part of Atharvaveda. It answers 6 questions and is set in three chapters and six sections.

5.    Mundaka Upanishad, part of Atharvaveda contains 64 verses divided into 3 parts (Mundakams), each having two sections.

6.    Mandukya Upanishad, part of Atharvaveda contains 12 short verses and discusses the nature of “Om” and 4 states of consciousness.

7.    Taittriya Upanishad, part of Krishna (Black)Yajurveda is structured into 3 chapters, SikshaValli having 12 lessons, AnandaValli having 9 lessons and BrighuValli having 10 lessons, totaling to 31 lessons.

8.    Aitareya Upanishad, part of Rig Veda comprises the fourth, fifth and sixth chapters of the second book of Aitareya Aranyaka which is one of the four layers of Rig Veda.

9.    Chandogyopanishad is a part of Samaveda contains eight Prapathakas or chapters with many volumes and verses. It is one of the oldest Upanishads.

10. Brhadaranyaka Upanishad is a part of Shukla (White)Yajurveda. It contains 6 chapters Shvetashvatara Upanishad is a part of Krishna (dark) Yajurveda, arranged in 6 chapters containing 113 verses.

11. Kaushitaki Upanishad is a common Upanishad, originally part of Rig Veda. It is arranged in 4 chapters containing5,15, 9 and 20 verses respectively.

12. Maitri Upanishad is a part of Krishna Yajurveda arranged in seven lessons

The following two ideas dominate the teaching of all the Upanishads:

\ Final emancipation can be attained only by knowledge of the Ultimate Reality, or Brahman (Brahmajnana).

\ He who is equipped with the four means of salvation, viz. Vivekam (discrimination), Vairagyam (dispassion), Shad Sampatha (the six-fold treasure; self-control, etc.) and Mumukshutvam (yearning for liberation), can attain Brahman.

What you should know after reading this blog;

Ø  What is Vedanta? What are Upanishads?

Ø  How are they related to the Vedas?

Ø  What is the central theme of the Upanishads?

Ø  How many Upanishads exist? Which are important?

Ø  How are the various Upanishads attached to Vedas?

Ø  What is the central theme of the Upanishads?

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Vedanga - Limbs of the Vedas

Vedanga (वेदाङ्ग – limbs of the Vedas) are six sub-disciplines connected with the study of the Vedas. The intent of Vedanga was to ensure retention of purity of the original texts from degradation arising from time, local syntax, pronunciation changes, introduction of grammatical changes etc., all of which impact languages over time. This study allows the Vedas to retain their original design purity.

The Vedangas comprise:

1.    Shiksha or study in phonetics and pronunciation. The focus here is to ensure that the recitation of the Vedic texts follows a specific accent, stress, melody and incantation. It had six elements – varna (quality), svara (accent), matra (cadence), bala (strength of delivery or articulation), saman (recital) and samtana (continuity of delivery).

2.    Chhandas or study of meter in the poetry of the Vedas, including number of syllables, words, spacing etc in the structuring of the Shloka or verse. The placement of words was defined and precise; this when used in conjunction with Vyakarana and Shiksha, the meaning and formation could remain unchanged for centuries.

3.    Vyakarna or grammar. This is the study of grammar which allows correct formation of words and sentences to represent ideas. Though there were many, the most famous of Sanskrit grammarians are Panni and Taska (around 500 BCE). The term literally means "separation, analysis or explanation". The most celebrated Vyakarana work is Panini's 4,000-sutra Ashtadhyayi, which set the linguistic standards for classical Sanskrit, but it should be understood that development of vyakarana principles have been enunciated in the Rig Veda (2000 BCE) and there have been many since, such as Patanjali who have worked on vyakarana.

4.    Nirukta refers to study of etymology or glossary of words. It emerged as a limb of the Vedas due to a requirement whereby the meaning and source of almost 20% of the words used in the Vedas started getting lost as they had been used only one. Nirukta ensures that the meaning and correct usage are explained. This removes ambiguity in the meaning of various words and establishes the context in which they may be used. Major contribution in this limb is credited to Yaska (around 500 BCE).

5.    Kalpa or ritual processes. This is the instruction manual of how various rituals need to be performed. There are four primary Kalpashastras;

\ Shrauta sutra and shulba sutra which primarily deal with public rituals or yagna (sacrifice)

\ Grihya sutra which deals with rituals connected with the home, often major life events as detailed in the samskara such as birth, thread ceremony, marriage and funeral rites.

\ Dharma sutra which deals with the duties of various individuals, castes and communities.

\ Shulva sutra which deals with setting up of an altar for the yagna (sacrifice).

6.    Jyotisha refers to astrology/ astronomy or study of movement of planets and their impact on various elements of life, used mainly for conducting rites and rituals. Over time, the science of Jyothisha was used for many other activities such as astrology.

What you should know after reading this blog;

Ø  What are the Vedangas? Why are they important?

Ø  What is the connection between Veda and Vedanga?

Ø  What are the elements of the Vedangas?

Ø  Explain Shiksha, its importance to the Vedas and its elements

Ø  Explain Chhandas and its importance to the Vedas.

Ø  Explain Vyakarana and its importance to the Vedas.

Ø  Explain Nirukta and its importance to the Vedas.

Ø  Explain Kalpa, its importance to the Vedas and its elements

Ø  Explain Jyotisha and its importance to the Vedas.

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