V. JNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE

(RIGHT DISCRIMINATION)

 

The path of Jnana is for those who are gifted with strong intellect or mental grasp and have keen insight, capable of penetrating into the why and whereof of things, so as to reach the core of reality. It means right discrimination and knowledge, the first essential in the eightfold path of righteousness as enunciated by Buddha. It is from right understanding of the true values of life that everything else proceeds in the right direction, for without right knowledge of Truth all endeavors, with the best of intentions, are likely to go awry and land us sooner or later into difficulties.

 

The importance of true knowledge is felt in fact in all aspects of yogic life whether Karma Yoga or Bhakti Yoga. In Karma Yoga, one needs to know and realize that one has a right to action or work and not to the fruit thereof. As one cannot but do work the work therefore to be performed in the true spirit of one’s duty, a dedication unto the Lord, with the mind fixed on him. The renunciation of attachment to the fruits brings evenness of temper and in the calm of self-surrender lies true yoga of contemplation, a perfect peace born of total surrender of ones life to God.

 

In Bhakti Yoga also, a bhakta or a devotee has, as a preliminary step, to understand the true significance of bhakti or devotion to the Lord andthen to develop in himself a correct perspective, which may enable him to see the light of his IshtDeva not only in human beings but in every form of life.

 

In short, the path of Jnana Yoga lays emphasis on the true knowledge of the inmost Reality that is, or the true Nature of atman. “Self-contemplation”, the keynote of a true jnani, tries with the exercise of proper discrimination to separate the apparently giant little self (the outer man) from the little great self within (the inner man) for the self is the foe of self, and self when properly trained becomes the friend of self. The aim of this yoga is to chase away the darkness of ignorance with the torch of knowledge. It is a highly analytical path and for it's successful working, one has to adhere diligently to three things:

 

(1). Shravan or hearing: hearing the scriptures, the philosophic discourses, and above all, the living teachers of spirituality with first-hand experience of the of the Reality, who can transmit their own life impulse to those coming into contact with them, for it is in the company of the truly awakened soul that one awakens from ones long slumber.

 

(2). Manan or thinking: it consists in intense and thoughtful contemplation of what one has heard and understand so as to concretize the abstract, and make intellectual concepts the pulse of moment to moments living through a careful exercise of discrimination that distinguishes at every step the true from the false. It amounts to freeing the soul from the noose of egoism by all possible means at ones command. It is like churning butter out of the buttermilk.

 

(3). Nidhyasan or practice: It consists in shifting the center of gravity from the ephemeral and changing self to the abiding and eternal self, from the circumference to the center of one’s being. This gradually brings about detachment from the pairs of opposites – riches and poverty, health and disease, fame and ignominy, pleasure and pain, etc. – into which one and all tend to drift in the normal course of existence.

 

The path of jana is a short-cut to yoga but it is frightfully steep, and very few can take to it. it requires a rare combination of razor-sharp intellect and intense spiritual longing, which only a few like Buddha and Shankara possess.

 

The path however, would become smooth if one, by a mighty good fortune, were to meet a Master-soul. A Sant Satguru can, by his long and strong arm, draw an aspirant right out of the bottomless vortex of the life of the senses, without his having to do overmuch sadhna.