Journal 2

August 28th 2007
6.What psychological type/what yoga do you see yourself following.

(Yoga- Hinduism- "the path to God")

Because it is regarded as the shortest and steepest path to divine realization, and requires as Smith says, a rare combination of rationality and spirituality (p.32), I feel like an elitist in saying that Jnana yoga is probably the path for me. It almost seems destined that I choose the "path of knowledge." Ironically my name, 'Kendra', is anglo-saxon for knowledge, or all knowing. Oftentimes when I was younger I would just sit around and stare into the distance, where eventually my mother would come in and give me something to do because she said I looked bored. I always argued with her that I was just thinking, and that is doing something. I've always evaluated everything through thought, options, and research.

What specifically caught my attention on the concept of Jnana yoga was this passage: "The key to the project is discrimination, the power to distinguish between the surface self that crowds the foreground of attention and the larger self that is out of sight." This is something I can relate to because it is something that I have struggled with since I began to be aware of myself as well as my social surroundings around the age of 6. I know me more than anyone else, and the center of my being is something that cannot be expressed through any human form of expression, whether it be language, art, music, or action. I have accumulated much anxiety in the past in the futile attempt to relay the essence of my being to other people. The fact is that we are all open to interpretation. Everyone views the world subjectively and we are, always have been, and always will be what any given person wants us to be. The differentiation between the exoteric and intrinsic self is extensive and exhausting to try to cohere. While I find it impractical to continue to attempt to 'be our Being", the unification of the body and soul is something I find to be very important. I'm coming to realize that this is a self realization, and any effort to make others realize it is essentially pointless. We must see ourselves as two selves comparable to a hologram. I like the term, "I am the witness."

I can relate myself to the three techniques of Jnana yoga because I feel that they are approaches of perspective that I am all ready trying to acquire.

Viveka, one of the techniques, means 'discernment' and involves a deliberate, continuous effort to understand that the real you is something separate from the objects of which you are aware (www.realization.org). This to me, is to look at the world completely subjectively without any ties to, and complete freedom from, material objects as well as other people.

Neti-Neti is another technique with means 'not this, not this' in Sanskrit (www.realization.org). This is the struggle to detach oneself from material and temporary objects, as these objects do not make up who we are. My entire life I've been more rational then I have been emotional. I am weary of intimate relationships with other people because I do not like the effects that they tend to have on me. These effects while normal to most people, distract me from other things that I care about, things that I know I deem more important when my vision is not jaded with notions of love and sentiment. I am constantly reminding myself that other people may be essential to my mortal being, but the Self is not dependent on them.

Vicara is another technique translated as "self-inquiry" but really means examination, reflection, or looking within (www.realization.org). As I have said in my first journal regarding my beliefs and non-beliefs, I believe that I will be in a state of contemplation throughout my entire life, attaining balance but never complete peace or truth. I have always constantly adapted new ideas and contemplated them and assessed them over and over. When I move to a new idea, I may come back to an older idea I have previously studied and make comparisons. I determine how these ideas are applicable to humanity, and how they are applicable to myself.

The fundamentals of Jnana yoga all ready seem to be techniques in which I utilize in my personal path of knowledge. And it is my belief, that every persons path is essentially the same. I suppose that I would not necessarily say that their paths are the same as I would say that their desired destinations are the same. We are all on a quest for truth, in one way or another, and that truth is what we wish to attain. The only difference between any of us is the path we choose to take to get there.

I appreciate emotions but I don't allow them to dictate my views on life. I don't see myself as a person on the way to God through work, my body is not nearly half as active as my mind. As I said in the beginning of this journal, my mother always tried to give me something to do because she thought I was bored. I prefer to come to assumptions through process of thought rather than physical processes, they are oftentimes only distracting to me. I could see myself closer to the psychophysical path then any of the other options. But through process of elimination and self-assessment of my learning technique and personality, I still determine that Jnana yoga would be my chosen path.