Knowledge, devotion, action: the paths of liberation in Hinduism

There is no single way to seek liberation: the Bhagavad Gītā and yoga point to different paths for different temperaments.

This article is part of an introductory series on Hinduism: 1. What it is · 2. The texts · 3. Key words · 4. The paths to liberation · 5. The deities.

If the ultimate aim is liberation from the cycle of births, how does one get there? Hinduism does not give a single answer. Its most distinctive idea is that there are different paths, suited to different temperaments, and that none of them rules out the others.

The Bhagavad Gītā and its paths

The text that gave shape to this idea is the Bhagavad Gītā. Arjuna, facing the battlefield, does not want to fight; Kṛṣṇa, who serves as his charioteer, answers him by pointing out various forms of yoga, a word that here means “discipline”, “path of union”.

  • Karma yoga, the path of action: doing one's duty without attachment to results, offering up one's actions instead of acting for oneself (chapter 3);
  • Jñāna yoga, the path of knowledge: distinguishing what is eternal from what passes away, until one recognises one's true self (chapters 2, 4 and 13);
  • Bhakti yoga, the path of devotion: love and trusting surrender to God, which the Gītā presents as the most accessible path (chapter 12). Towards the end Kṛṣṇa says: “Let go of every duty and take refuge in me alone” (18:66).

In the nineteenth century Swami Vivekananda, who introduced Hinduism to the West, arranged this teaching into “four yogas”, adding rāja yoga, the path of meditation. It is a modern synthesis, but it has become very widespread.

The yoga of Patañjali

The classic text of the meditative path is the Yoga Sūtras attributed to Patañjali, probably composed in the first centuries AD. The second aphorism defines yoga as “the stilling of the movements of the mind” (yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ, 1:2). The path has eight “limbs”: ethical rules towards others and towards oneself (yama and niyama), posture (āsana), breath control (prāṇāyāma), withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation and finally absorption (samādhi).

The yoga practised in gyms today derives mainly from the third and fourth of these limbs, reworked in the twentieth century. Originally the postures were only a preparation for meditation.

The devotion of the poets

Between the sixth and the seventeenth centuries bhakti became a great popular movement. Poets and saints, often of humble origins, sang of their love for God in spoken languages rather than in Sanskrit: from the Āḻvārs and Nāyaṉārs of Tamil Nadu to the princess Mīrābāī, who left the court for Kṛṣṇa. Devotion makes liberation accessible to everyone, with no need for learning or complex rituals.

Compared with other traditions

The idea of acting without clinging to the fruits has a close relative in the Tao: wu wei, “acting without forcing”, through which the Taoist sage lets things follow their course. It also recalls the Benedictine rule of Christianity, ora et labora, pray and work: daily work as a form of prayer. Zen, too, makes every gesture, from cooking to sweeping, an exercise in presence.

Bhakti closely resembles the mysticism of love in the Abrahamic religions: Islamic Sufism, with its poems to the Beloved and the repetition of the names of God (dhikr); Christian mysticism, from Teresa of Ávila to John of the Cross; the fervour of the Hasidim in Judaism. Patañjali's eight stages call to mind the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, even though the two lists do not match: in both, ethics comes before meditation.

What can we take from all this? Perhaps the most liberating idea of all: that there is no single path. Those inclined to reflection can seek through knowledge, those who love through devotion, those made for action through work done well and without selfishness. And in every tradition ethics, the way we treat others, comes before any spiritual technique.

In the next and final article of the series: the deities of Hinduism.

Further reading

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