Jnana Yoga

Jnana Yoga is the elite of Yogas. To my way of thinking, it has never been taught in the West. As a matter of fact, it can’t really be taught, only experienced. It is the Yoga of Inquiry, of Discrimination. Neti Neti—Not this, Not that (in Sanskrit). It is separating the Real from the Unreal. In Advaita Vedanta it is said: “Lead me from the Unreal to the Real”. That is Jnana Yoga. Shankara, really the leader of Advaita (non-dual) Vedanta, was a Jnani. So was the modern Ramana Maharshi, as was the legendary Yogi Vasistha. The Jnanis are the elite of Yogis.

Some writers have, mistakenly, called this the “Intellectual Yoga”. If they want a Yoga of the intellect they would be better off looking in the direction of Sri Aurobindo’s “Integral Yoga”, which is very cerebral.

“Raja Yoga” is generally considered the elite of Meditation Yoga, but it really embraces more than Meditation. I have heard several claim to teach Raja Yoga, but they meant they taught meditation, not the eight branches of Raja Yoga.

It would be well-nigh impossible for one living in the West to master Patanjali’s Raja Yoga. First, he or she would have to abide by Yama and Niyama; the don’ts and do’s of conduct, moral and otherwise. Then they would have to spend almost a lifetime mastering Pranayama, Asana (the postures—Hatha Yoga), and Pratyahara (detaching the senses from the fields of the senses, so that a Yogi who had mastered this discipline would be invulnerable to pain, if he so chose).

Once all these were mastered, not just dabbled in, he or she would have only completed the preliminary disciplines. Then he or she would be ready to tackle the real stuff: Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and then the final step of Yoga, Samadhi (often called the Superconscious State). First, one would have to enter the first Samadhi, one with ‘perfume’ (habit energies or “Vashanas” still alive though, temporarily, not active. From this one would progress to Nirvakalpa Samadhi, in which there is no trace of Vashanas or even of mental activity—just the experience of Bliss).

It is interesting that Buddhist practice goes one step farther, Samadhi not being the ultimate goal of practice. From here the enlightened Buddhist would progress to Prajna, the inherant wisdom.

Don’t feel that, by reading about these practices, one knows them or has mastered them. The “self-enlightened” dabbler is usually fooling him or her self. It would take many, many lifetimes, under a great teacher or Guru, to master all these.