Sankhya Yoga – A New Way to Learn

Learning is the process by which an individual acquires knowledge. An individual acquires information and learns everything by means of his or her five senses. The present education system caters primarily to learning by means of the auditory and visual senses.  But it does not assist students to learn from their tactile senses. This lacuna in the education system often leaves students without the ability to deal with their motivations and emotional responses. 

Over 2500 years ago, Indian sages had developed the Sankhya Yoga technique – called Vipassana by the Buddhists – for learning from the tactile senses. The technique helps a person to remain emotionally balanced, develop life skills, and even to achieve self-actualization. In the fourth century BC, Aristotle, the Greek Philosopher, had written his psychology treatise, De Anima (On the Soul), in which we find a biological explanation of the Sankhya Yoga technique.

This paper uses the current research work on human physiology, especially on the body’s cognitive impulses, their dynamics and their pathology, to understand the physiology of human learning. It also examines Aristotle’s De Anima and Nicomachean Ethics to understand how the Sankhya Yoga technique can make us more ethical. And, the paper shows the simple way by which students can begin practicing Sankhya Yoga.

(Abstract of my Paper for the International Conference of Science of Human learning organized by Education Technology and Management Academy at India International Center, New Delhi, Feb 4-6, 2016)