The great wisdom: karma, jiṋána and bhakti yoga

The great wisdom, mahávákya viveka, speaks of the importance of understanding and distinguishing the three paths of yoga that bring us closer to the highest goal.

Yoga is the union of the individual soul with the supreme Soul. And the union is not like that of sugar and sand, but like that of water and sugar: once they are combined, you cannot separate them. In the same way, a separate entity, in the course of its life's journey and through spiritual practices, gradually merges with the cosmic Entity, forgetting its individual limitation. If the practice has been perfect, the individual becomes a so-called jiivanmukta, one liberated while still alive. This happens when you live in a human physical body, but your consciousness is cosmic.

There are three kinds of yoga, three ways of practicing the path. They are jiṋána yoga, the path of knowledge; karma yoga, the path of action; and bhakti yoga, the path of love. According to the philosophical definition, yoga is an attributeless, supramental faculty of cognition, an attributeless supramental faculty of action, and an attributeless supramental longing. What does attributeless mean? Attributes are the qualities in which consciousness gets "dressed." There is sattvaguńa, which gives noble, higher qualities. Rajoguńa gives less noble qualities, and tamoguńa low qualities. Consciousness takes form under the influence of these three guńas, the three binding forces of nature. Yoga is a way of gradually freeing yourself from the influence of nature, from the "crudeness" in which you have "dressed" yourself, and regaining your original state.

Jiṋána yoga

Attributeless supramental cognition is aimed at the world that lies beyond form, at the sphere in which the object of inquiry lies beyond the mind. You come to know it through a combination of intellect and intuition. With the intellect you take aim, and with intuition you look deeply, and then the intellect must fall silent. This intellectual-intuitive faculty aimed at knowing is what matters in jiṋána yoga.

On this path, to gain wisdom you need to read the books of the spiritual Master. As you study them, you discover a whole world. That is the intellectual part. The intuitive part is meditation. You aim at the supreme Consciousness and come to know It through intuition. Then It manifests within you. For example, you turn a mirror toward the sun. If you have caught the sun in the mirror, your mirror begins to shine. Then right ideas begin to arise, a right direction, and wisdom appears. This is called jiṋána yoga.

All our lives we should practice jiṋána yoga, whose main aim is to know the supreme Entity. In meditation you need to aim your intellect and intuition at the supreme Being and to govern your thought, which wants to move in ten directions. But you direct your thought in one direction. And you read, study and constantly refine your outlook.

Karma yoga

Karma yoga is the faculty of action; it is attributeless and supramental. The goal of such action is not the world, not material things. The goal of this action is to establish a link between the microcosm and the Macrocosm. When we act to avoid the stick or in pursuit of the carrot, that is not karma yoga. If the motive of your actions lies in the supramental sphere, when in acting you reach out toward God, then that is karma yoga.

Karma yoga is activity that takes you out of the reactions to past actions (saḿskáras) and creates no new reactions (saḿskáras). Such activity is motivated by conscience and bliss. That is, the action happens not because "I want to" or "I don't want to," but because it is right, because it needs to be done. It is born of a state of overflowing, of inspiration, when you want to give rather than take. This is called karma yoga, and its goal is union with God. Then comes the understanding that it is He who acts, and you are an instrument. Such actions, done in the spirit of service, take you beyond egoism and break the shackles of the mind. After such service you see the world with different eyes and feel yourself a different person. Through service you gradually rise from darkness to light. The simplest way to come to prosperity is to perform actions selflessly aimed at the welfare of all beings.

Bhakti yoga

The last is attributeless supramental longing: bhakti yoga. Karma yoga is "I act, I serve the world." Jiṋána yoga is "I meditate, I come to know the supreme Being, my mind is focused on Him." Karma yoga and jiṋána yoga can bring you to God's threshold, but you will not cross that threshold as long as you have no love, as long as there is attachment to your "I"-feeling, which is located in the ájiṋá cakra. This "I"-feeling is the dearest thing you have. Yoga calls on you to break the shell of this "I"-feeling. The individual consciousness must throw off the fetters of máyá and unite with the supreme Consciousness.

This cannot be done intellectually alone. At the beginning of practice you sit down to meditate, but you want to think about familiar things. Worldly anchors hinder your striving toward the supreme Consciousness, and you have to struggle to overcome gravity. But if you rise high enough, to where the sun's gravity is stronger than the earth's, you simply begin to fall toward the sun, and from that moment yoga becomes spontaneous and natural; effort is no longer needed.

When you have developed love for the Supreme and all the tendencies of your mind converge on Him, your devotion becomes so strong that you are ready to give yourself up, ready to go beyond your ego. And then you can unite with Him.

For this you need to cultivate bhakti, love for the Supreme. When you sit down to meditate, feel that you have come to a rendezvous with Him. He is looking at you and you are looking at Him; feel a sense of living contact. Think that you are not prepared to share Him with anyone, because He belongs to you alone. And this is logically sound, because there is the so-called ota yoga, the link of the Nucleus with each microcosm, and prota yoga, the collective link of the Nucleus with the whole universe. Through ota yoga you can feel His attention. Bhakti is knowing that He has a special, unique love for you in particular.

Mahávákya viveka means that you understand all of the above and see its relevance.

To reach the goal of human life, you need to choose a path that contains all three directions: jiṋána, wisdom; karma, action and dynamism; and bhakti, love for the Supreme. By directing all the energy of your mind into one channel, you will move like an arrow toward the highest goal.