Jnana Yoga Goal Prerequisites Process and Culmination Goal

Jnana Yoga Goal, Pre-requisites, Process and Culmination

Goal of Jnana Yoga • Freedom from sorrow (shoka) and delusion (moha) • Complete fulfillment • Unshakable sense of security, happiness and peace • Tranquility when facing success and failure in life

Principle • Anything finite and non-eternal cannot be completely fulfilling. • Anything that has a beginning should have an end. Anything that comes will have to go. • This implies that what is to be achieved is infinite and eternal, and it is already here. • It is only an ignorance of its presence that creates unfulfillment. • Knowledge (Jnana) is the only remedy for ignorance. • So, Knowledge is the only means to complete fulfillment.

Knowledge of What? • Me • World • My relationship with the World

Pre-requisites • Unbiased mind (vishuddhaatmaa) – Free from likes (raaga) and dislikes (dvesha) • Calm mind (vijitaatma) • Introverted mind (jitendriyah)

Preparations • Karma Yoga – to get an unbiased mind that is free from likes and dislikes • Samaadhi Yoga – to get a calm introverted mind. Also called Upaasana Yoga or Patanjali’s Ashtaanga Yoga.

Process • Hear or read about the Truth (sravana) • Think deeply about it and clear all questions and doubts about it (manana) • Think about the implications of it in everyday life and transform emotionally (nididhyaasana)

What is the Truth?

What does it mean? • Subject and object are the same. • There is only one underlying entity that is both me and the world. • Everything is me only.

Who am I? … • Let us understand subject and object characteristics and relationships. • Eye is the subject; objects of vision are objects; properties like shape, size, color, etc are of the object.

Who am I? … • The mind is the subject; eye is the object; properties like healthy, blind, myopic, color blind, etc are of the object.

Who am I? … • I am the subject; mind is the object; properties like awake, dreaming and asleep are of the object. • I am the one who knows that I slept well last night.

Who am I? … • I am the ultimate subject. • Discarding all that can be objectified, what is left is what I am. • I can never be an object. (aprameya)

Who am I? … • • All properties belong to objects only. Subject can never have properties. I have no properties. (nirguna) That which does not have properties cannot be prone to any change. (nirvikaara) • That which does not change is eternal (nitya) and omnipresent (sarvatra). • That which does not change cannot do any action (akartaa) nor can be affected by any action (abhoktaa).

Who am I? • • • I am the ultimate Subject. I have no properties. I am changeless. I am eternal. I am omnipresent. I am non-doer of any action. • I am unaffected by anything.

What is an Object? … • An object is perceived by the sense organs. It affects one or more of the five senses. (rupa) • An object has a mental image and a name associated with it. (naama) Even a new object is related to an already existing mental image. Even an abstract object which doesn’t have rupa has a naama.

What is an Object? … • Is there more to an object apart from rupa and naama? • What is common between even two most dissimilar objects – let us say a frog and a mug?

What is an Object? … • We usually ignore the obvious. • They both EXIST (asti). • They both GET KNOWN (bhaati). • How they get known depends on the senses and mind.

What is an Object? … • Looking beyond the senses and the mind, every object that we can perceive or thinkof “EXISTS” and “SHINES FORTH” • The properties of the object are merely the “WAYS” as which it shows itself as.

What is an Object? … • A pot has a “form” and a “name”. • But in reality, it is just clay. • Similarly, if the “form” and “name” of an object is ignored, the underlying substratum is the “real” object. • The underlying “real” object just “exists” and “shines forth”.

What is an Object? • When we look beyond the properties, every object is the same (ekam). • It is without properties (nirguna). • That which does not have properties cannot be prone to any change. (nirvikaara) • Changes are only to the properties of an object. Not to the underlying “real” object itself. • That which does not change is eternal (nitya) and omnipresent (sarvatra). • That which does not change cannot do any action (akartaa) nor can be affected by any action (abhoktaa).

Subject and Object … • Both the subject and object have the same qualities: – – – Without properties Changeless Eternal Omnipresent Actionless Unaffected

Subject and Object • The only difference is that one is object (prameya) and the other is subject (aprameya). • This is familiar. • The object is only a mirror image of the subject.

This is the Truth

Implications … • There is only one “real” changeless entity, which is “I”, the subject. • The world is just a mirror image of the subject. • All changes are to properties only. • I am never affected by the properties of anything and the changes to properties.

Implications … • I am infinite. • I am eternal. • It is the properties of the objects in the world that changes. • I am just a witness. • I am pure conscious (chit) existence (sat) full of bliss (aananda).

Implications … • I am ever fulfilled. • I don’t lack anything. • There is nothing that I need to achieve. • There is no place for desire, greed, jealousy, pride, anger, etc.

Implications … • I just keep watching the play of the properties that goes on in the world. • I sportively play my role without worrying too much about success or failure. • It is just a game. Winning or losing does not matter. There is no need to cheat.

Implications • Everyone and everything is “I” only. • Everything is in me and I am in everything. • Yet I am unaffected by all this. • In fact, “I” don’t play at all. It is just a play of properties.

Jnana • This is the Truth. • This Truth alone can give complete fulfillment. • This alone can give freedom from sorrow. • Knowing this Truth, there is nothing more to be known.