Jnana Yoga is often described as the path that removes ignorance (avidya) about one’s true nature, revealing that bondage was only ever a misidentification. The individual ordinarily takes the body, mind, and personality to be the Self, and from this arise the senses of doership, enjoyership, and separation from the whole. Through discrimination (viveka), there is a careful discernment between what is eternal and unchanging—Atman or Brahman—and what is transient and dependent, such as body, thoughts, and the external world. This process is supported by dispassion (vairagya) and the cultivation of inner virtues like tranquility, self-control, endurance, faith, and concentration, which steady the mind for deeper inquiry. As identification with the perishable weakens, the ego’s claim “I am this body-mind” begins to lose its grip, and the sense of being a separate, limited self is gradually undermined.

The heart of the path is self-inquiry (atma-vichara), expressed in the question “Who am I?” and in the contemplative method of “neti neti” (“not this, not this”). By recognizing that all objects of experience—sensations, emotions, thoughts—are witnessed and therefore not the true Self, attention is drawn back to the unchanging witness-consciousness that underlies waking, dream, and deep sleep. Scriptural teachings, especially the great sayings such as “That thou art,” are first heard and studied (shravanā), then reflected upon (mananā), and finally meditated upon deeply (nididhyāsana), until knowledge shifts from indirect understanding to direct realization. When this direct recognition dawns—that the individual self (jiva) is not other than Brahman—the fundamental ignorance that sustained samsara is dissolved. Actions may continue on the surface, but without a separate egoic claimant, karmic bondage no longer generates further rebirth, and liberation is recognized as the ever-present nature of the Self rather than something newly acquired.