Show Notes
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✦ Practice Online Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join ✦ OmSom App (free) Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community Search OmSom in the App Store ✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Already 200 Hr trained? This is our Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto ✦ 200 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka ✦ 300 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training ✦ 50 Hr Online Yin Yoga Teacher Training Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto ✦ Practice in Person Classes, workshops & community events in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class
IN THIS EPISODE
Where does knowing actually live? Most of us would say the brain, the intellect, up here. Tantra disagrees. This week we explore jñāna śakti, the second of the three powers: the divine capacity to know. Not knowledge you collect from books or teachers, but the recognition of what was already true. Through the story of a woman tearing her house apart searching for a necklace she was wearing the whole time, we unpack pratyabhijñā, the Recognition doctrine of Kashmir Śaivism: liberation isn't something you achieve. It's something you remember. The practice is the mirror. The teacher is the friend who points you toward it. And the necklace is what you already are.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✦ What jñāna śakti is: consciousness's capacity to recognise itself, one layer deeper than knowledge, the power of knowing itself✦ Pratyabhijñā, the doctrine of recognition: to re-cognise is to remember what was already present, that moment a feeling you've always carried finally finds its word✦ Jñāna vs vidyā vs pramāṇa: knowledge learned from another, knowledge verified against a source, and the capacity for knowing - do you know it as something you've learned, or as something you are?✦ How to actually pronounce jñāna (hint: it's not "gyana") - a mini bīja-sound lesson in where the sound lives in the mouth✦ Why the teacher's only job is to keep pointing you back toward the mirror, and why we always answer your question with "what do you think?"✦ The buddhi: the discerning, intuitive layer of mind where jñāna śakti is active✦ Samyoga & viyoga: the Ayurveda journaling exercise that proves you already know the answers to your own health✦ Why sattva matters: without clarity and balance, even the aha moments can be illusion
TEXTUAL REFERENCES
✦ Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam, sūtra 8: "tad bhūmikāḥ sarva-darśana-sthitayaḥ" - the positions of all philosophies are stages of this same recognition✦ Yoga Sūtra 1.7: "pratyakṣa-anumāna-āgamāḥ pramāṇāni" - right knowledge has three sources: direct perception, inference, and reliable testimony✦ Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad: the two kinds of knowing - parā vidyā, higher knowledge from the divine source, and aparā vidyā, lower knowledge from worldly sources✦ The Pratyabhijñā (Recognition) school of Kashmir Śaivism, 9th century
TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE ✦ Journal your samyoga and viyoga: a few dot points on what you do (habits, rituals, actions, thoughts) that move you toward the state of yoga, and what moves you away from it. Then read the list back. You just gave yourself the advice SHARE & CONNECT
Website: https://omsomyoga.com OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store Instagram: @omsomyoga
If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.
We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we’d love to connect with you.
HARI OM
More from Om Som Yoga + Ayurveda Podcast
PRACTICE WITH US✦ Practice Online — Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join✦ OmSom App (free) — Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community. Search OmSom in the App Store✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training — Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto✦ 200 Hr YTT — Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka✦ 300 Hr YTT — Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training✦ 50 Hr Yin YTT — Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto✦ Practice in Person — Classes, workshops & community in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class IN THIS EPISODEWhat's the fastest way to steady a restless mind? Most would say discipline. Patañjali offers a shortcut in his very first chapter: īśvara-praṇidhānād vā — "or, by devotion." The mind doesn't need to be forced; it takes the shape of whatever it dwells upon. Week three of THE PATHS OF YOGA is BHAKTI YOGA, the path of devotion — where love itself is the vehicle, and emotion, the most unruly force in human life, becomes the most direct road home. We open with Hanumān breaking open Sītā's priceless pearls one by one — "if Rāma is not inside it, it has no value to me" — and what the court saw when he tore open his own chest. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN✦ Bhakti from the root bhaj — "to share, to partake, to belong to": not worship at something distant, but participation in the beloved ✦ The mind becomes what it loves — worry is just devotion pointed at fear ✦ Aparā and parā bhakti: love with a face as the practice; lover, loving and beloved dissolving into one as the fruit ✦ Why Patañjali makes devotion a valid technique — and YS 1.39's quiet generosity: meditate on whatever you love ✦ The nine limbs of bhakti: hearing, chanting, remembering, serving, worshipping, bowing, servitude, friendship, self-offering ✦ The democratic path: no qualification, no Sanskrit — a leaf, a flower, water, offered with love, is enough ✦ Paige's doṣa medicine TEXTUAL REFERENCES✦ Nārada Bhakti Sūtra 1–2: "bhakti is of the nature of supreme love directed toward this" ✦ Bhagavad Gītā 9.26: a leaf, a flower, a fruit, water — offered with devotion, accepted ✦ Bhagavad Gītā 12.2: those whose minds have entered the beloved are the most established in yoga ✦ Yoga Sūtra 1.23 & 1.39: by devotion to Īśvara; by meditation on whatever is dearly desired ✦ Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.5.23: Prahlāda's nine limbs ✦ The Hanumān pearl-necklace story, Rāmāyaṇa devotional tradition TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE✦ Open practice by dedicating it to something you love — and notice how the quality of attention changes ✦ Japa with feeling: the mantra practised not as technique but as address — someone is being spoken to ✦ Take one of the nine limbs as your whole practice this week: just hearing, or just remembering ✦ Offer the first portion of one meal a day ✦ Notice what your mind already worships — what it returns to when no one is directing it — and choose deliberately ✦ Leave us a comment: if the mind becomes what it loves, what is your mind becoming? SHARE & CONNECTWebsite: https://omsom.yogaOmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App StoreInstagram: @omsomyogaIf this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it. We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we'd love to connect with you.HARI OM
PRACTICE WITH US
PRACTICE WITH US ✦ Practice Online - Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join ✦ OmSom App (free) - Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community. Search OmSom in the App Store ✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training - Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto ✦ 200 Hr YTT - Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka ✦ 300 Hr YTT - Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training ✦ 50 Hr Yin YTT - Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto ✦ Practice in Person - Classes, workshops & community in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class
PRACTICE WITH US ✦ Practice Online — Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join ✦ OmSom App (free) — Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community. Search OmSom in the App Store ✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training — Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto ✦ 200 Hr YTT — Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka ✦ 300 Hr YTT — Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training ✦ 50 Hr Yin YTT — Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto ✦ Practice in Person — Classes, workshops & community in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class