The Quest (March 2021 Newsletter)

Photo by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

In our lives we are always searching for something else, something more and something meaningful.

This is the foundation of the philosophy of yoga. Philosophy is the attempt to clarify the connection between the inner and outer worlds. All sentient beings, those that are alive in any shape or form, have a soul according to yoga philosophy. The soul, whose nature is true existence, consciousness, and bliss (Sat, Chitta, Ananda) has largely been the focus of the many schools of Indian thought.

Regardless of which philosophical tradition appeals most, the search is always for immortality, whether it’s called Moksha, Nirvana or Kaivalya (aloneness).

Knowledge is not just an intellectual exercise, but it is what is actually experienced. Constantly experiencing! To understand the difference between the particular and general aspects of knowledge (jnana or khyati) one has to recognize the difference between cognition and consciousness. But to start this clarification process one has to have discrimination (viveka khyati), and for this we need yoga. Cognition has three attributes to its awareness; it is discriminating in that there is always a knower (the self), a means of knowing and an object that is being experienced or observed. Consciousness is not specific. It is just simply awareness, it is non-specific and underlies all cognition and thought.

Discriminating knowledge where the soul is considered distinct from the mind is the starting point. From there it grows into experiencing it, sifting the Real from the transitional. This requires persistent and enduring practice of yoga. Through the ways the body and brain and nerves and body systems all work together, yoga has the subtle power to move one into this region of quiet awareness. SIMPLY AWARENESS. SIMPLE AWARENESS.

Namaste,

sipra