#15 - Patanjali’s Three Ways of Knowledge

Our relationship with ourselves greatly influences our yoga practice. And some of us might think of ourselves as our thoughts, or maybe we think of ourselves as our physical bodies. On this episode of The Yoga Inspiration Podcast, I’m going to tell you that your sense of self is neither.

Your life is more than this material structure. It’s hard to detach our self-identity from our thoughts, but the goal of your yoga practice is to help you realize that you exist beyond your thoughts and physical form. 

We are not the body. We aren’t even really our minds. Those things represent our smaller selves, the one that exists to please our ego and cling to the material world. Those cycles of suffering I’ve discussed in previous podcasts come from this limited view we have of ourselves. 

When you think this way about yourself, you are glorifying the ego and moving further and further away from the teachings of yoga.

Are you ready to transcend your mind and meet your true self? 

Working towards our liberation is no easy feat, but the yoga sutras are designed to help you transcend. On this episode I discuss three specific sutras from Patanjali’s Three Ways of Knowledge:

1. Anumana, or intellectual knowledge, which is what you can think about and reach a seemingly logical conclusion
2. Agama, or devotional knowledge, which is the knowledge you don’t understand but you take it to be true because you trust the source
3. Pramana, or experiential knowledge, is direct experience, and when we experience something we know it to be true even if we don’t understand it logically

Ideally, these types of knowledge all line up and we reach a transcendent sense of self-knowledge. But of course, this is not as easy as it looks. Too often we reach incorrect logical conclusions, or devote ourselves to the wrong sources of information. I discuss ways we do this in our daily lives without realizing it and how it all influences our misconception of ourselves. 

Can you remember a time when you came to an incorrect logical conclusion? Think about it. 

You can use logic and still reach a wrong conclusion that looks and feels correct. Maybe you even confirmed this logic with a source you found on Facebook or YouTube, thus devoting yourself to a negative agama.

This is not an easy thought process to shift. It’s harder than just turning around to get a new perspective. The challenge lies in breaking the habits of your mind to think beyond the physical and the mental. Shifting this thought process is a goal of the yoga practice, and we dive deeper into this concept as I answer questions at the end of the episode and discuss ways you can use these sutras in your daily yoga practice. 

If you’re interested in learning more about yoga sutras like these, stay tuned. There will be more opportunities and immersive experiences coming online as we continue to navigate the post-COVID world. Make sure you’re following my podcast so you can stay up to date with all of the amazing yoga opportunities coming your way.

If you’re a practicing yoga student with an inspiring journey, please share a bit of your yoga journey with me and my listeners. Send me an email at [email protected] and tell me - what does yoga mean to you? You could be invited to guest spot on The Yoga Inspiration Podcast with Kino MacGregor!