you have the time and energy to continue your journey through Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga by embarking on the Intermediate Series, you will find that you have an incredible tool at your disposal. Although the Intermediate Series initially requires a great deal of energy, time, and determination, the outcome is worth the effort. The daily practice of the full Intermediate Series deepens your quality of life so much that once you are established in this regimen, you simply will not want to live in a body that does not undergo this type of yogic training.
1 Yoga Sutra II.29.
2 Hatha Yoga Pradipika I.1.
3 The oldest excavated Indian city, Mergarh, is now confirmed as being eight thousand years old. It had 25,000 inhabitants.
4 Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad 4.3.33.
5 My translation, from P. D. Ouspensky, Auf der Suche nach dem Wunderbaren [In Search of the Miraculous] (Munich: Otto Wilhelm Barth Verlag, 1982), p. 52.
6 According to yoga, the intellect is made up of three gunas (qualities), which are tamas (dullness), rajas (frenzy), and sattva (wisdom). The first two qualities need to be reduced through practice, study, and devotion.
7 Some modern teachers claim that when Patanjali wrote about asana, he was referring only to the sitting posture of meditation. But the Rishi Vyasa has spelled out in his commentary on the Yoga Sutra that posture in yoga is not just sitting with one’s head, neck, and back in a straight line but is the practice of a complete course of yogic asanas (Swami Hariharananda Aranya, Yoga Philosophy of Patanjali, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983, p. 228).
8 Terminology courtesy of Richard Freeman.
9 Yoga Sutra I.30.
10 Yoga Sutra I.14.
11 Yoga Sutra II.27.
Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma : The Three Forms of Yoga
In this chapter we look at the three basic forms of yoga — Jnana, Bhakti, and Karma — exploring how they differ and what they share in common. Essentially, Jnana Yoga is the yoga of knowledge; Bhakti Yoga is the yoga of devotion; and Karma Yoga is the yoga of action. All modes or expressions of yoga can be classified under these three disciplines. The yogi needs to understand that they are complementary. They suit different temperaments; some people may practice one form for a period of their lives and then switch to another. The subject of this book, Ashtanga Yoga, falls under the umbrella of Karma Yoga, but it incorporates certain aspects of the other two forms.
We also look at the different modes of Karma Yoga, the form of yoga most widely known and practiced in the West. This includes a more detailed look at the eight limbs of Ashtanga Yoga. This knowledge will enable you to sift through all the diverse information you hear about yoga and put it into the context of your own practice.
Yoga in its various forms crystallized out of the Vedas, the oldest scriptures known to humankind. The Vedas are considered to be of divine origin. They contain eternal knowledge (the term Veda comes from the root vid, “to know”), which is revealed anew during each world age to those who are open to hearing it. Those who receive this knowledge and record it are called Vedic seers, or rishis.1
Because the Vedas are voluminous, they are divided into categories to make them more accessible. Well known are the four main Vedic texts, the Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda, and Atharvaveda; each of these categories represents a set of family lines (gotra) that was entrusted to preserve that particular set of scriptures. The Vedas are also commonly divided according to the subjects the passages deal with. These divisions are called kandas (portions). The three kandas are the Karma kanda, which pertains to performing actions; the Upasana kanda, which concerns itself with worship of the divine; and the Jnana kanda, the portion pertaining to self-knowledge. As you may have guessed, the Karma kanda became the basis for Karma Yoga, the Upasana kanda led to Bhakti Yoga, and the Jnana kanda laid the foundation for Jnana Yoga.
Jnana Yoga
The term Jnana comes from the verb root jna, to know. In fact, both the Greek word gnosis and the English word know have their origin in the Sanskrit jna. Jnana Yoga is the most direct path to recognizing yourself as a manifestation of divine consciousness, but it is considered to be the most difficult. In the days of the Bhagavad Gita, Jnana Yoga was called Buddhi Yoga (the yoga of intellect) or the yoga of inaction, because one practices it through contemplation alone. This form of yoga is the one predominantly taught in the ancient Upanishads, the mystical and philosophical section of the Vedas. In the Brhad Aranyaka Upanishad this yoga is described as consisting of three steps: shravana (listening), manana (contemplating), and nidhidhyasana (being established).2 The practitioner first listened to a teacher who had attained the illustrious self-knowledge that all is in fact nothing but Brahman (consciousness). He then let go of all his desires, such as wealth, success, pleasure, fame, and family; retired to a quiet place; and contemplated the words of the teacher. After due consideration, he recognized the eternal truth of the teaching and was then permanently established in that truth.
From this short description, you may understand why this path is considered short and direct but also very difficult. It is short because there are very few steps involved. After finding a teacher, there is really only one step: the contemplation, in a solitary place, of your unity with the Supreme Self. It is a difficult path for many reasons. It requires that a self-realized teacher accept you as a student. Such teachers were considered hard to find even in the ancient days, and they are much rarer today. It then requires that you completely let go of all attachments to wealth, success, pleasure, fame, family, and so on. Modern Western teachers who prefer to communicate to their students that they can “have it all” do not drive this point home enough. Traditionally this highest path was taught only to renunciates and ascetics, those who had taken a vow to forsake all the worldly attachments mentioned. The reasoning was that one had to let go of all external attachments if one was to surrender all
