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?