During my time at the Vedanta Academy in India, I learned a spiritual discipline that completely transformed my life. It’s called Gnana Yoga (or Jnana Yoga). It’s the yoga of knowledge and wisdom.1
Gnana means knowledge. Yoga means union. Together, Gnana Yoga is the path of realising your essential nature through knowledge.
What is Gnana Yoga?
Gnana Yoga is a traditional discipline that prepares the mind for meditation. I’m not talking about modern-day meditation techniques; I’m referring to traditional meditation — the kind that is practised for true Self Realisation or God Realisation.
The practice of Gnana Yoga calms the mind and sharpens the intellect. Not the academic type, but the subtle thinking faculty called buddhi: the power to reason, discern and distinguish between the real and unreal, the eternal and the ephemeral.
Through systematic study, self-inquiry, reflection, and contemplation of the scriptures, Gnana Yoga gradually reduces selfish desires, quietens the ego, and clears the accumulated clutter of the mind.
It’s like weeding a garden. If you neglect it, the weeds take over. Gnana Yoga removes the mental clutter that prevents clarity, composure, and steady contemplation.
Three Thought Temperaments
Every human mind expresses itself through three thought temperaments, known in Vedanta as the gunas. Now, don’t let these Sanskrit terms put you off, because they are universal, meaning these gunas are for everyone. So, it’s important to know what they are.
In Sanskrit, these thought temperaments are known as Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas:
Sattva is a state of peace, contentment, composure, serenity, poise, and pause. It is a state of contemplation and objectivity — seeing life as it is. It is the highest state, and while we all have it, in some of us it is very faint, so we need to strengthen it.
Rajas is a state of passionate activity. You’re out there running around desire-ridden, propelled into action helter-skelter by every desire that comes up.
Tamas is a state of inertia. Your mind and body are sluggish, your intellect is asleep, and you’re just going through the motions.
A lot of people mistake tamas for sattva, but it isn’t!
In modern-day meditation, people claim to be peaceful, but what is actually happening is that they have simply stopped running around and slipped into inactivity. I don’t mean to sound dismissive of our modern approach to meditation. However, there is much to learn and understand before we can find lasting peace.
Waking Up to Your Higher Nature
In nature, sattva manifests between 4-6am. If you wake up after six, you miss it completely and jump right into rajas, rushing into the day before the mind has found its centre. This is no way to function!
When you rise early, you enliven the Buddhi, intellect.
Unfortunately, we live in a world that thinks “intellect” means intellectual brilliance or academic achievement. But the Buddhi is our awakened thinking.
Look at it this way: Buddhi is Buddha with an ‘i’ on the end. To become awakened like the Buddha (the awakened one), you need the Buddhi — your awakened thinking to take you to that state of Self Realisation or God Realisation.
The intellect is like a muscle: if you don’t exercise it, it remains weak. Imagine an adult with the muscles of a child? It’s like that.
When the intellect is weak or asleep, the mind jumps into the driver’s seat.
The mind is a flow of thoughts—it gets into worries of the past and anxieties of the future, jumping from thought to thought like a monkey from one branch to another.
The Buddhi, intellect, governs the mind. It decides which thoughts deserve attention and which should be ignored. It is also what keeps the mind in the present.
So, we need to wake it up and strengthen it — and the best time to do this is first thing in the morning through the practice of Gnana Yoga (the yoga of knowledge).
How to Practice This at Home
You don’t have to overhaul your life overnight. Just tweak your habits by going to bed a little earlier and getting up a little earlier. This needn’t become another self-improvement project. Simply begin where you are.
Start with 30 minutes: Get up at 5:30am, sit quietly in a comfortable chair without disturbances, and gradually build up to an hour.
Choose an uplifting text: Find a sacred text that uplifts you. My choice is the Bhagavad Gita by A. Parthasarathy, but choose whatever inspires you. It could be the Bible or the Dharmapada.2
Read systematically: Don’t just turn to a random page. Go systematically from beginning to end, reading just a couple of paragraphs.
Follow the 20/80 Rule: Spend 20% reading and 80% reflection. Ask yourself: How does this apply to my life? What do I need to do to bring about a positive change?
What you read and contemplate in the quiet morning hours carries you throughout the day. You find that you are no longer as reactive as you used to be. You become calmer, more in control, poised, and dignified in how you respond to life.
Imagine beginning each day this way? Why not try it for a month? Observe what changes — not only in your mornings, but in the quality of your thinking throughout the day. If you decide to try it, I’d love to hear about your experience.
Thank you for reading.
Till next time, Be Well, Meredith ∞ The Elder Sage
