The Best Knowledge
- Jessica Girija Jewell
- Apr 9
- 3 min read
"I shall declare to you this supreme wisdom, the best of all knowledge, knowing which all the sages have attained to supreme perfection."
— Bhagavad Gita 14.1, translated by Swami Prabhupada
In the Bhagavad Gita — one of the most enduring and beloved texts of the yoga tradition — the divine teacher Krishna speaks intimately with his devotee Arjuna just as the great battle of the Mahabharata begins. In Chapter 14, Krishna shares what he calls "the best knowledge" there is: the knowledge that leads to peace, joy, and equanimity. That knowledge is Sankhya — the metaphysical framework that underlies all of yoga.
At the heart of Sankhya is the teaching of the gunas: the three fundamental qualities of Mother Nature that weave together and create everything we experience, from the most physical to the most subtle. The three gunas are:
Tamas — the quality of heaviness, stillness, and inertia. Think of the pull of sleep, or the weight of a cloudy afternoon.
Rajas — the quality of movement, momentum, and agitation. Think of a churning mind or a hurried Vinyasa flow.
Sattva — the quality of clarity, harmony, and luminosity. Think of the peace of presence, or the clarity of a sudden insight.
Everything in this universe — every material form, every mood, every moment — is composed of some combination of these three gunas, forever shifting and dancing with each other.
This is not abstract philosophy. It can be understood in the body, in the breath, and in the thoroughly ordinary moments of everyday life.
This week during my asana practice I found myself on the way to Natarajasana — Dancer pose. Standing in Tadasana, steadying the gaze, shifting weight into one leg, lifting the other, reaching back to take hold of the foot. And then pausing. Searching for steadiness right there, letting everything settle.
And in that pause, my foot wobbled.
Not dramatically — just a small, subtle shift. The ceaseless micromovements that are always happening in the body, the constant play of forces finding their way toward balance — perhaps even in response to the subtle shifts of a spinning earth.
That is the play of the gunas — tamas in the grounding of the standing leg, rajas in the wobbling foot, sattva in being at peace with the practice.
Knowing the gunas helps deepen our understanding of life off the mat too. Since they are the fabric of all experience, we can learn to recognize them anywhere — in a difficult moment with a spouse, a child, a colleague, or even a stranger. When judgmental or unkind thoughts arise — or, heaven help me, words find their way out of my mouth — I've learned to pause and notice what's present. Tamas, probably. Or rajas, likely. Sattva, not so much.
One of the goals of yoga practice is to increase sattva — to cultivate more clarity, kindness, and creativity in ourselves. So that's what I try to do: bring a little more sattva into the moment, into the body, into the breath, into the conversation. It's not a dramatic fix — that would be rajas! — just a gentle nudge toward a better outcome.
All this to unabashedly invite you to join me for Awaken: A Weekend Yoga Immersion, May 15–17 at Yoga Together Lincoln.
This is an opportunity to learn the philosophical framework that underlies the entire practice — Sankhya, the metaphysics of yoga, which offers a remarkably clear map of reality and experience. And the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, which identify what causes our suffering — the vrittis and kleshas — and how to address it: the eight limbs of yoga.
Knowing these elegantly simple things deepens and expands your practice — on and off the mat.
If any of this resonates — if you're
curious about yoga beyond the postures,
drawn to its philosophy, or
simply ready to go a little deeper
I hope you'll join me.
We'll learn in community, with room for questions and conversation. And yes, there will be asana — because the body is where we first befriend the gunas.
Awaken: A Weekend Immersion in Yoga May 15–17, 2026 | Yoga Together Lincoln
Sliding scale: $160–$250
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