Jnana Yoga
Path of Knowledge
Some Notes; Not a Summation
Jnana Yoga The way of the intellect to the Divine. Reflected in the middle third of the Bhagavad-Gita, chapters 7 - 12, as well as chapters 2 and 4. If you stopped someone around 800 CE and asked which yoga he or she followed, the response would likely be Jnana Yoga. Because of its particular methodology, it is perhaps the most challenging to discuss.
You seek to cultivate your will and mind to discriminate and distinguish, and the "dis-identify" or eliminate yourself from your body, mind and senses until you "know" you are nothing but the Self - Atman. Huston Smith refers to three distinct stages in this rigorous method.
First you actively listen to the great teachers and engage the scriptures, such as the parables of Upanishads, e.g., Chandogya, and verses of the Bhagavad-Gita, as well as come to know your own being, in all its dimensions. You are the subject, activity studying and listening to your teacher and engaging the texts, which are the objects of your study. You recognize the the "you" is a temporal, finite "subject," made up of your gunas and karma baggage, which hinder you from truly seeing your Self.
Then second you reflect on the meaning of the objects of your engagement, going beyond the gunas that mask over ourselves and the scriptures, discriminating and distinguishing the subject from the object, the temporal from the Eternal, the self from the Self. Acknowledge duality.
And then third you detach and attempt to eliminate the self, the subject, from the process altogether, and see from the perspective of and union with the Self, what Smith calls the "Third Person Method" (first person - I, second person - you, third person - omniscient - all knowing point of view). You become witness to the Self. And hence a little closer to realizing Atman/Brahman with your Self. Realize monism.
You seek to distinguish the subject of knowing from the object of knowledge, to detach yourself from yourself to know the Self. The method is summarized in the phrase, Tat tvan asi - "that art thou."
"I know my body, I am not my body, I am witness of my body;
"I know my body (1. engage), I am not my body (2. discriminate), I am witness of my body (3. detach and view as 3rd Person);
I know my thoughts, I am not my thoughts, I am witness of my thoughts;
I know my emotions, I am not my emotions, I am witness of my emotions;
and so on . . . . ."
As the great south Indian philosopher, Shankara (meaning "mystic of the soul"; 788 - 820 CE) explained in his Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, we must go beyond the "coverings" of "ourselves" (body, energy, mind, intellect, ego) and view the true nature of the Infinite.
I, the Atman, am Brahman. I am Vishnu. I am Shiva.
I am the universe. Nothing is, but I am. I dwell within:
I am without. I am before and behind. I am in the south and I am in he north. I am above and I am below . . . .
This entire universe of which we speak and think is nothing but Brahman . . . There is nothing else . . . .
The scripture says, "The Infinite is where man sees nothing else, hears nothing else, knows nothing else." In the Infinite, the scripture tells us, there is no duality - thereby correcting our false idea that existence is manifold.
I am Brahman, the supreme, all pervading like the ether, stainless, indivisible, unbounded, unmoved, unchanging. I have neither inside nor outside. I alone am. I am one without a second. What else is there to know?
Parables from the Chandogya Upanishad