Jnana Yoga

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What Does it Mean to Be a Witness and How to Cultivate that Awareness?

Swami Satchidananda: We all have a witness in our own system. That’s what you call the Self. It is a constant witness. What is it witnessing? It witnesses the play of the mind. The mind constantly creates drama. When you go to a movie theater, what do you do? You sit...

How to See Your True Self

To become somebody, you have to know what that somebody is. If you don’t know, how can you become that? I often give the example of seeing your own face in a mirror. We have never actually seen ourselves. When you stand in front of a mirror, whom do you see? You only...

Become Fit to Experience Jnana Yoga

Gurudev Sivanandaji used to tease the so-called Vedantins and Jnana Yogis at the ashram. They would say, “Aham Brahmasmi, I am that Supreme Brahman.” Occasionally, Gurudev would touch a jnani’s arm with a little piece of stinging nettle. That person would jump up,...

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Jnana Yoga: The Path of Wisdom

Jnana Yoga is the path of wisdom. It is suitable for people of an intellectual nature. A Jnani Yogi acts with the feeling, “I am not the doer; Nature is doing everything. The body and mind are moving among the objects. I am the silent witness of all that is happening....

Spiritual Hints for Daily Life: Jnana Yoga

Depending on our temperament, we can pursue the journey of awakening in various ways. If we wish to develop the will and gain mastery over the mind, we can take a Raja Yoga approach. If we tend to be analytical and intellectual, there is the path of Jnana Yoga. If we...

Taking the Witness Stand: Cultivating Neutral Observer Mind

Witnessing, a key spiritual practice in Jnana Yoga, involves taking the position of a neutral observer to the whole range of our experience: physical sensations, perceptions, thoughts and emotions. It can be practiced as a meditation technique in which one...

Who Am I? A Guided Meditation

Sri Swami Satchidananda recorded a self-inquiry process that he recommended as a meditation technique. Here is the process he gave: One wonderful meditation technique is self-analysis. It’s a process that leads you to identify with the inner Self, the Knower, rather...

Jnana Yoga and Vedanta in the Yoga Sutras

We learn from our study of Yoga and Vedanta that their goals are one and the same: realization of the true Self. Both sages Veda Vyasa, and Sri Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, taught that by cultivating viveka (discriminative discernment) the cause of suffering...

Be As You Are: The Jnana Yoga Teachings of Sri Ramana Maharshi

David Godman (his family’s actual surname) read a book in 1974 about the great sage and jnani, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and two years later traveled to his ashram in India. Since then, he has lived almost continuously in Tiruvannamalai, the town where Sri Ramana spent all...

Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Truth

Peter Marchand, a student of the late Harish Johari, was drawn to the study of Jnana Yoga by what he calls his “rational tendencies.” As an environmental engineer and scientist he felt easily attracted to the study of Jnana Yoga. His book, The Yoga of Truth began as...

The Relationship Between Yoga & Vedanta

Dr. David Frawley (Pandit Vamadeva Shastri), a regular contributor to Integral Yoga Magazine, is one of the few westerners recognized in India as a Vedacharya or teacher of Vedic wisdom. In this interview, he clearly illustrates the relationship between Yoga and...

The Jnana Yoga of Adi Shankara

Sri Adi Shankara is considered to have shaped the Hindu religion for the 1200 years following his disappearance from the world at age 32 in the early part of the ninth century. Having brought forth the advaita philosophy in its fully systematized and polished form, he...

Jnana Yoga: Science of Self

Jnana is knowledge. To know Brahman as one’s own Self is Jnana. To say, “I am Brahman, the pure, all-pervading Consciousness, the non-enjoyer, non-doer and silent witness,” is Jnana. To behold the one Self everywhere is Jnana. Ajnana is ignorance. To identify oneself...

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