Abhyasa Ashram – Jnana Yoga: The Yoga of Contemplation

*******Over 5,000 students are enrolled in this course*******

Pondering, reflecting, contemplating on the nature of our personality, soul, and spirit is one of the most important aspects of traditional Yoga. Please don’t overlook this essential part of your Yoga practices. This course will lead you through the levels of contemplation, from the basics to the most advanced contemplations as practiced by the ancient sages.

Yoga is a whole life process. The Contemplation of Jnana Yoga is one of the most advanced practices of Yoga. The reflective process of contemplation utilizes the word-forming habit of the mind in a directed way, so as to transcend not only body and breath, but most importantly, to go beyond the mind to the realization in direct experience the True Self, the Atman, or Center of Consciousness.

A Suggestion: Our descriptions of traditional Yoga tend to be thorough, broad, and deep. This can lead you to think this is complicated, and that it’s going to take a great deal of study like in a college class. But the suggestion is to take it easy; watch the presentations leisurely, like you might watch a movie while sitting on a comfortable chair or couch. Just absorb it, take it in. Don’t worry about memorizing. It will gently sink in, and you can practice the principles in daily life. Go back later and look again at the presentations, whether all of them or a few. Terminology, principles, and practices will gently become familiar.

This course first outlines the preparatory practices, leading one to start the process of contemplation. The course then guides you in the preliminary practices of contemplation through the processes of positive inquiry of Internal Dialogue. Finally, you will be taught the traditional contemplations, the “great” contemplations known as Mahavakyas, which have traditionally be practiced primarily by those monks living lives of renunciation in remote places like the cave monasteries of the high Himalayas.