In this four-part series, leading up to the International Day of Yoga on June 21, Sadhguru looks at the four dimensions that underline any kind of yoga and address the four fundamental aspects of every human being—body, mind, emotion and energy.
Gnana does not mean to philosophise, gnana means “to know”.
Unfortunately, philosophy is mostly passing off as Gnana Yoga today. Fundamentally, if you want to pursue gnana, you need a very sharp intellect. Every moment you must slowly sharpen your intellect to a point where it is razor-sharp. It misses nothing. It can go through anything, but nothing sticks to it. It is not influenced by anything that is happening around. This is gnana.
If you can keep your intellect like that, it naturally penetrates through the process of life and shows you what’s true and not true, what’s real and not real. But today, people have made philosophies: “Everything is maya. It is all illusion, so why worry?” They are trying to console themselves. But when maya gets them properly, their philosophies will evaporate.
It happened to a philosopher: he was going about with great strength, “Everything is maya, don’t bother about anything.” Once, a rabid monkey started chasing him as he was walking. The philosopher screamed and ran. After a while, the monkey was distracted and left. He realised that all this “maya teaching” had fallen down. “Monkey is maya, monkey’s madness is maya, monkey biting me is also maya. Why did I run?” It hit him so strongly. He was never the same man again.
Gnana yogis cannot afford to believe or identify themselves with anything. The moment they do, the sharpness and effectiveness of the intellect is over. Unfortunately, today in the name of gnana, people just believe so many things—“I am atman, I am paramatman”. They read all this in books. This is not gnana yoga, because you are just believing something. People who walk the path of gnana are people whose intellect is such that they are not willing to believe anything, nor do they disbelieve anything. “What I know, I know. What I do not know, I do not know.” This is gnana.
Either you know something or you do not know it, that is all there is to life. If your life has become such that you cannot be straight with the world, at least with yourself, you must be 100 per cent straight. “I do not know” is a tremendous possibility. If you want to seek something, first you see that you do not know. Then, the longing to know arises and seeking follows. Then, there is a possibility of knowing.
The writer is a yogi, mystic and visionary, and a prominent spiritual leader. Visit yogayoga.org for yoga practices, specially designed by Sadhguru, in the run up to the International Day of Yoga on June 21. (www.ishafoundation.org)