The Indian spiritual tradition offers a radically different, pragmatic perspective: ultimate spiritual reality is fundamentally an experiential science (Anubhava). A Gujarati commentary on Mīrā’s spiritual philosophy states this directly:

પથના ભેદ પથિકો નહીં, પથ-વિવેચકો કરે છે
(Devanagari) पथना भेद पथिको नहीं, पथ-विवेचको करे छे
(Romanized) Path-na bhed pathiko nahi, path-vivechako kare chhe
The differences between paths are drawn by those who analyze paths, not by those who walk them.

When a practitioner deepens their internal practice (Sādhanā), the mechanics of consciousness do not need to be intellectually compiled before they are felt. They unveil themselves organically from within. Because this wisdom is lived, it naturally flows out in whatever language the practitioner speaks. It requires no artificial translation, nor does it depend on specialized technical jargon to validate its authenticity. Nowhere is this phenomenon more clearly illustrated than in the life and poetry of the 16th-century poet-saint Mīrābāī, known throughout this piece by her familiar short form, Mīrā.

Mīrā did not author formal theoretical treatises, nor did she engage in scholarly debates. Yet, her regional devotional songs contain precise, high-level descriptions of advanced yogic states. She did not study these internal states in a library; she articulated them directly from her lived experience. In doing so, Mīrā demonstrated that the deepest states of consciousness are not locked away in academic vaults. They are part of an organic, living tradition that speaks directly to the common seeker.

Photo Credit: Meerabai Wikimedia Commons

Deep Dive: Understanding the Terminology: Pad, Pāda, or Bhajan?

While contemporary audiences often refer to Mīrā’s songs as Bhajans (a broad, general term for devotional hymns), in regional literature and classical poetics they are formally categorized as Padas (also written as Pads).

Derived from the Sanskrit Pāda (meaning a verse, stanza, or metric foot), a Pad is a specific short, lyrical poem structured for music and singing in regional dialects (Gujarati, Rajasthani, Braj Bhasha). Unlike long formal epics or technical treatises, Padas were composed in the everyday language of the common populace. Passed down orally across centuries through singers, wandering mendicants, and communal village gatherings (Satsangs), Padas functioned as vital educational vessels. They carried metaphysical insights, subtle yogic maps, and spiritual mechanics directly into the daily rhythms of mainstream society.

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The Rigveda does not open with a narrative of cosmic genesis, an abstract philosophical discourse on reality, or a distant deity. It opens with the mechanics of heat.

The first hymn of the oldest living text in the Indic civilization addresses Agni. The layout of this initial verse outlines a functional process through four specific technical capacities assigned to fire: purohita, ṛtvij, hotā, and ratnadhātama.

• Purohita combines puro (in front) and hita (placed). It designates that which stands at the boundary line, acting as the primary point of contact and mediator between two states of matter or consciousness.

• Ṛtvij means acting in structural compliance with ṛtu (the seasonal or cyclical timing) and ṛta (the overarching cosmic order). This implies that systemic transformation cannot occur via chaotic heat; it must follow natural law.

• Hotā is the functional invoker derived from the root hu (to pour into a flame). It represents the active catalyst that draws the elements into the field of transformation.

• Ratnadhātama is the superlative form of the bestower of ratna (luminous assets or optimal systemic outputs).

When these terms are read as an integrated framework, they describe a specific input-output system: an element is offered, Agni processes it, converts its state, and returns a refined byproduct of a higher order. This is the operational layout of the Vedic yajña (sacrifice).

The historical misinterpretation of this architecture lies in treating it purely as external ritualism. As analyzed by Sri Aurobindo in The Secret of the Veda, the Vedic language uses structural homologies where physical descriptions match internal psychological states. Agni represents kratu (क्रतु, from √kṛ, “to do”), the targeted processing force and conscious intent within the human system. It is the drive that prevents stagnation by continually converting raw experience into structural growth. This metabolic and psychological blueprint is the exact foundation inherited by both Yoga and Ayurveda.

The External Separation Framework

During the nineteenth century, European Indological analysis applied a linear historical framework to these texts. This methodology assumed a progressive evolution from primitive nature worship to abstract logic. Consequently, scholars categorized the Rigveda as basic pastoral poetry focused on material acquisitions like rain and livestock, while treating later texts like the Upaniṣads and Yoga Sūtras as separate, detached philosophical movements that rejected the Vedic root. This categorical separation enabled the modern commercial extraction of these sciences. By decoupling the practices from their systemic framework, the global market isolated individual elements to serve specific consumer niches.

Figure 1. Commercial extraction fragments a single integrated architecture into three detached consumer categories.

This extraction altered the baseline definitions of the practices:

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I am starting a new section called At the Source.

If Word & World looks at the language through which yoga and Indic traditions are explained, At the Source turns our attention to the texts themselves.

Many of us learn about yoga through teachers, workshops, training manuals, social media, or modern books. There is nothing wrong with that. Traditions have always been taught through explanation and interpretation. But something subtle happens when the original sources are rarely revisited. Over time, we begin to know the ideas mostly through summaries rather than through the texts that first expressed them.

This section is a small attempt to return to those sources.

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In At the Source, each piece will stay with a single passage - a verse, a sūtra, a poem, or a short teaching and read it slowly. Sometimes that source may come from widely known texts like the Bhagavad Gītā or the Yoga Sūtras. At other times it may come from devotional poetry, saint traditions, regional literature, or commentaries that have shaped the way these teachings have been understood over centuries.

The goal is not to produce academic commentary. Nor is it to turn every line into a complicated philosophical analysis. The intention is simpler than that: to pause long enough with a text to hear what it is actually saying.

Many traditional texts are written in very compact forms. A sūtra may be only a few words long. A verse may look simple on the surface. A poem may sound like a devotional expression. Yet within those few words there can be layers of meaning, assumptions about practice, and insights that become visible only when we slow down and look carefully. A single line can sometimes hold more than a long explanation. This section is meant to create space for that kind of reading.

Sometimes we will look closely at the wording of a verse and notice how a particular term shapes its meaning. Sometimes we may explore how a passage is commonly interpreted today and how its original context adds something important. And sometimes the exercise will simply be to sit with a line that has been repeated for generations and ask what it might reveal when we read it again with fresh attention.

The sources themselves will vary. Some pieces may come from classical Sanskrit texts that many yoga students already recognize. Others may come from bhakti traditions, saint poetry, or regional literature that carries these teachings in everyday language. Traditions grow and travel through many voices, and At the Source will reflect that diversity.

What will remain constant is the starting point: the text itself.

Rather than beginning with a broad theme and searching for quotations to support it, each post will begin with a source passage and let the reflection grow from there. In that sense, the text leads the conversation, not the other way around.

At the Source will appear on the first Thursday of each month. Each post will stay with a single passage and make space for a slower, more sustained reading than the pace of most online conversations allows.

There is something refreshing about returning to the sources in this way. It reminds us that many of the ideas we discuss today were originally expressed in very direct, carefully chosen words. Sometimes we discover that the text says exactly what we expected. At other times we find that it says something slightly different from what we assumed.

Either way, the experience of reading closely brings us back into contact with the tradition itself.

And that is really the spirit behind At the Source.

It is not about collecting quotations or proving interpretations. It is about taking a moment to sit with a line, a verse, or a teaching and allowing it to speak in its own voice before we move on.

Because sometimes the clearest way to understand a tradition is simply to listen again to the words that formed it.

At the Source begins soon.

Om Tat Sat
Trupti
SattvaSpired | Yoga in Essence