It Began with “Who Am I?” — The Yoga Philosophy I Learned at Under The Light Yoga School

Introduction

On 4 November 2026 I wrote up a one-day workshop on yoga philosophy that I had attended — a day that worked through Vedānta, Sāṅkhya, the Yoga Sūtras, and Tantra into Haṭha Yoga, pairing a lecture with practice for each school in turn.

The philosophy I met there had a different flavour from the philosophy I had once learned at Under The Light Yoga School (UTL) in Tokyo.

I wanted to understand why. So I took out the notebook I had kept during my 200-hour yoga teacher training (RYT200), between August 2012 and January 2013.

It runs to 216 pages, mostly Ashtanga practice logs, sequence drawings and anatomy notes, with sections on yoga philosophy scattered throughout. Rereading those sections, I discovered a much more coherent system than I remembered.

In this article, I follow the philosophical ideas recorded in the notebook, in the order they were taught. The notes are often fragmentary, so I have developed them into prose while staying close to what I wrote at the time.

UTL, 2012

At UTL, our yoga philosophy teachers were Kiyoshi Naruse and Munindra K. Panda.

I attended two of Naruse’s classes, although I will not discuss their content here.

I also remember reading his book, Ima ni Ikiru Indo no Eichi — Yōga no Genryū kara Gendai no Seija made (『いまに生きる インドの叡智 ── ヨーガの源流から現代の聖者まで』, Zenponsha, 1999). It has never been published in English.

It traces the ground from before the Indus civilisation through the Vedas, the Upaniṣads, the Bhagavad Gītā, the Yoga Sūtras and Haṭha Yoga to the saints of the modern age, divided into ancient, medieval and modern, with a long chronology at the front. Yoga philosophy laid out as one historical current.

Panda studied Indian philosophy at Berhampur University in India and has worked with Sanskrit, Indian philosophy and Vedic literature.

The notebook contains headings such as “Yoga Philosophy, Day 1,” “Day 2,” “Yoga Philosophy, 3rd session, 2012/12/1,” and “Yoga Philosophy, Day 4, 2012/12/7.” These refer to Panda’s four lectures, a total of twelve hours, which form the basis of the account that follows.

“Who Am I?” — It All Begins with Not Knowing Yourself

The first session began immediately with a question.

Panda began with suffering, sorrow and fear, presenting them not as problems in themselves but as symptoms of something deeper.

What lies beneath them? According to my notes, Panda’s answer was that we do not understand ourselves. Rather than merely easing the symptoms, we need to look at their source. The direction of the entire course was established within the first fifteen minutes.

He then turned to two particular fears: illness and death. Of these, death was described as the greatest.

That led to a series of questions:

• Who am I?
• Where I come from?
• Why I came here?
• How long will I live?
• Where am I going?

These five questions span the past, present and future. Beneath them lies the idea that understanding who you really are can free you from fear.

The proposed answer to fear, then, is not simply to calm the emotion but to understand the self.

So who am I? Not my name, the notebook tells me. A name is given at birth and serves as a temporary identity. Nor can the answer be found in the qualifications or achievements listed on a résumé.

The notes also say that a good question makes for good meditation. This approach, described in class as “Indian meditation,” involves sustained inquiry that may deepen into realisation over a lifetime.

What surprised me most, reading this fourteen years later, was the idea of meditation as a question rather than a technique.

Instead of counting breaths or trying to empty the mind, you sit with a question. The quality of the question shapes the quality of the meditation.

The Soul and Its Vehicle

The notebook next describes human beings as distinctive because of their intelligence, and enlightenment as knowing oneself. From there, the lecture moves toward an answer.

The answer given was “I am a soul,” followed by three connected ideas.

First, the soul belongs to the universe. Second, the body is the soul’s home. But it is more than a home: it is a moving vehicle that carries the soul through the world.

In the chariot metaphor, the senses are what pull the vehicle forward.

The senses draw the body through the world while the soul rides within it. If the senses are allowed to go wherever they please, the chariot follows. This is where the question “Who am I?” begins to have practical consequences. The passenger may become so absorbed in the journey that they forget who is travelling.

Death Is Only a Change of Body

Houses grow old and are replaced. Cars wear out and we buy new ones. The notebook uses these everyday comparisons to explain the body.

This is where karma enters the picture. Our actions determine the circumstances of the next life; in the metaphor, we prepare our own next home.

Death, in this account, means changing bodies rather than the end of the self. When the old body is left behind, another is acquired. Beside this passage I wrote “the core of yoga philosophy,” and apparently underlined it.

Two contrasting ideas follow: the brevity of the body’s life and the eternity of the soul.

Life is uncertain from one moment to the next. Illness, earthquakes, fires, bombs and tsunamis can bring it to an end without warning. We cannot be certain we will be alive tomorrow. The soul, however, is described as eternal.

These notes date from 2012, just a year after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Seeing those two ideas written together now is striking.

The second session developed the ideas of karma and rebirth further. The consequences of past actions differ from person to person, and the cycle of birth and death continues. This is saṃsāra.

The gross body was also described as undergoing six changes: development in the womb over nine or ten months, birth, growth, maturation, ageing and illness, and finally death. None of these changes can be stopped.

Beside this, a single line in red ink reads: “Live your own life = simply accept what happens.”

How do we respond to changes we cannot prevent? That question comes to mind when I see the only line written in red.

The Body as a Map — Gross, Subtle, Causal

The body was presented as having three layers.

The first is the gross body, which we can see and touch. It has measurable characteristics such as height, weight, colour and age. This is the most familiar layer.

The second, the subtle body, is harder to grasp because it cannot be seen. Rather than defining it directly, the notebook poses a question: a living body and a dead body may look much the same, but which one experiences joy and sorrow?

There is no written answer, only the statement that “the subtle body has left the body.” The implication is that the visible body alone does not account for the subject who experiences the world.

Despite being invisible, the subtle body is described in considerable detail: sense organs, organs of action, prāṇa, mind and intellect.

For the third layer, kāraṇa śarīra, the causal body, my notebook records only the name. No explanation has survived.

The Five Elements, and the Microcosm

The gross body, meanwhile, is understood as consisting of five elements.

The discussion of air led directly to breathing. The notes suggest that regulating the breath offers a way to influence the physical body, which is why prāṇāyāma was described as the entrance to yoga.

Here, the five elements were linked directly to practice.

The explanation ends by connecting the body to the universe. The macrocosm consists of five elements, and so does the body, the microcosm. In this view, the body is a small universe made from the same elements as the larger one.

The seventeen components of the subtle body, introduced earlier, were said to govern this microcosm.

This completes the framework: the soul travels in the body; the body has three layers; the gross body consists of five elements; and the seventeen components of the subtle body direct its activity.

There is also one brief note about the channels through which prāṇa is said to flow in the subtle body: nāḍī means “river,” there are 72,000 of them, and prāṇa flows through them. The note is dated 30 September 2012, with nothing further recorded on the page.

Mantra and Purification — You Cannot Wash the Inside with Soap

The second day began with mantra.

Mantra was introduced as a means of purifying the mind, linking it to śauca, the second niyama, or observance of purity.

Śauca was divided into outer and inner purification. Bāhya śauca concerns external cleanliness, something we attend to every day. Antar śauca concerns the inner life, which, according to the notes, often receives much less attention.

We can wash the outside of the body with soap and water, but we cannot clean the mind in the same way. We may not even notice when it needs attention.

What, then, counts as inner impurity? The answer given in class was desire.

“Have you ever been free, even for a moment?” the teacher asked. Desires constantly occupy the mind, and mantra was presented as a way of finding freedom from that activity.

Two approaches were mentioned: chanting a mantra aloud or listening to it. Vocal chanting was presented as the preferred method, with listening as the second option.

The notes on the Gāyatrī mantra make a distinction between prayer and asking for material rewards. One line simply says, “Not a beggar.”

Instead, the prayer is for something less tangible: illumination of the mind.

The reasoning is also recorded. The universe is vast and human understanding is limited. Rather than asking to receive more things, we ask for greater understanding.

Knowledge and Wisdom — What Goes in the Purse, What Goes in the Soul

The third session, on 1 December 2012, explored the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

The notes describe three levels. Information is fleeting. Knowledge is information we consider important enough to remember. Wisdom is what remains valuable throughout life and, in the philosophical account presented, accompanies the soul into the next life.

They are also said to be stored differently. Knowledge belongs to the brain, compared in the notebook to a purse that holds records of the past. Wisdom belongs to the soul.

The metaphor goes further: knowledge can come and go like money in a purse, whereas wisdom grows when it is shared. Money diminishes when spent; wisdom does not.

On the following page is a drawing of a bird. The soul is represented as a bird with two wings: jñāna (wisdom) and karma (action).

Neither knowing nor acting is enough on its own. A bird needs both wings to fly. What interests me is that this image follows immediately after the distinction between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is not merely something to possess; it must work together with action.

The Three Qualities of the Soul — Sat, Cit, Ānanda

The lecture then turned to the nature of the soul.

The body ages regardless of what I want. In the logic of the lecture, this shows that the body is not the true self. It belongs to the material world and is subject to decline.

The notes give two terms for this material realm: Prakṛti in the Yoga Sūtras and Māyā in the Vedas. The terms differ, but the point being made was that we live within this changing world.

Consciousness, by contrast, cannot be seen with the physical eye. We can observe its activity but not the soul itself. The notebook compares this with the idea that God, too, cannot be seen directly.

How, then, can we recognise something invisible?

The notes point to our ability to think and feel: “I know that I am.” In this teaching, the evidence for the soul is found in conscious experience.

Past, present and future are the three divisions of time. The soul was described as persisting through all three, and therefore as eternal.

From the three qualities of the soul, the lecture moved to happiness. The search for happiness was described as another way of trying to escape suffering.

Yet if ānanda, or bliss, is already a quality of the soul, happiness need not be something we obtain from outside. In this view, its source lies within us.

Sahasrāra — Wisdom Is Light

The fourth session, on 7 December 2012, opened with the sahasrāra cakra.

It was presented as the final cakra, associated with the thousand-petalled lotus at the crown of the head. The notes connect it with the lotus imagery seen in Buddhist figures: with realisation, many flowers bloom.

The notes also associate realisation with lightness. Wisdom is light, while ignorance feels heavy. Weight becomes a metaphor for the difference between knowing and not knowing.

The final line on the page reads, “The true crown is wisdom.” The cakra at the crown of the head and the symbolic crown of wisdom come together in that image.

The Three Guṇas — Which Hour of the Day to Practise

The main subject of the fourth session was the guṇas.

It began with the distinction introduced earlier: the body belongs to Prakṛti, or matter, while the true self is consciousness.

Prakṛti has three fundamental qualities, collectively called the triguṇa: sattva, rajas and tamas.

The notebook gives two meanings for guṇa: a quality and a rope. The second image suggests something that binds the soul.

The guṇas are therefore not simply labels for different states. They are qualities to notice, understand and work with.

The lecture then related the three guṇas to different times of day.

Sattva was associated with purity, knowledge and white; rajas with action, activity, passion and midday; and tamas with inactivity, midnight and black.

Beside this I wrote, “See which quality is working” and “Look for it within yourself.” Rather than fixed categories, the guṇas were presented as qualities that shift over time.

The suggested times for practice followed this pattern. Sunrise and sunset were associated with sattva and therefore with yoga practice; midday with rajas and midnight with tamas.

Because midnight was associated with tamas, the notes recommend meditation rather than vigorous movement at that hour. Prayer and mantra chanting were described as sattvic activities.

The lecture also used the metaphor of fuel. Ignorance fuels tamas, while knowledge fuels sattva and was associated with lasting happiness.

The notes even distinguish the kinds of things that bring happiness. Tamas is linked with watching other people, as well as food and drink. Sattva is linked with looking at the sky, the moon, sunrise and sunset, and appreciating beauty.

Two lines sum up the contrast: watching people and things narrows the mind, while looking at the sky expands it.

The five elements were also assigned guṇas: air and space to pure sattva, fire to pure rajas, and water and earth to pure tamas. The explanation is brief: what moves belongs to rajas; what remains still belongs to tamas.

Here, two frameworks overlap: the five elements that make up the body and the three qualities of Prakṛti. Together, they offer ways to ask what is active within me at a given moment, in relation both to the body and to the time of day.

A Week of Practising Yama and Niyama

Near the beginning of the notebook I found a neatly written report, tucked between the pages. It was an assignment for TT1.

For one week I had practised satya, the second yama, or truthfulness, and recorded what I noticed. This was philosophy put into action rather than simply studied. It is the one passage in this article where I quote directly from my writing at the time, translated from Japanese.

Patañjali’s Yoga — Yama / Satya (the practice of truthfulness)

For one week I practised the yama of satya (truthfulness). A few days later I gathered what I had felt, thought and noticed in the form of notes. Those notes follow. What I noticed came to five points:

1) Having my own criterion for judgement (especially when thinking about happiness)
2) Valuing my own sense of things and my own thinking
3) Admitting “I don’t know” about what I don’t know
4) Saying it out loud when I have a question
5) Knowing my own strengths and weaknesses

Each one is, honestly, challenging. They are easy to state, but when it comes to acting on them, my impression was that they are not easily done.

What they all have in common is valuing my own interior. I do take time with myself, time to face myself, but what these notes make me feel is that I want to make that time denser.

I want to go on valuing that time, and to value the voice and the thinking that well up inside me more than those of others.

from my TT1 report, 2012 (my translation)

Reading these words fourteen years later feels unusual.

Of the five points, the third stands out: “Admitting ‘I don’t know’ about what I don’t know.” I had understood that as part of practising truthfulness.

Satya is often understood as refraining from lies. My notes, however, begin somewhere more personal: being honest with myself about what I do not know. The attention turns inward before it turns toward other people.

I also described the common thread among the five points as “valuing my own interior.” Truthfulness, in this account, begins with my relationship to myself.

That idea still matters in the work I do today.

Yama and Niyama for a Teacher

Yama and niyama appeared again in a different context. On 7 December 2012, Mayumi Kondo, a UTL teacher and a friend of mine, gave a lecture titled “How to Build a Relationship with Your Students.”

Here, the same principles became a guide to a teacher’s conduct: not only how to practise personally, but how to relate to students responsibly.

Asteya, or non-stealing, is particularly interesting. The notes warn teachers against abusing their position, teaching mechanically or criticising other teachers. A principle usually associated with taking what is not ours becomes a question of how we use authority. Another instruction is not to be troubled even when no students attend.

Fourteen years later, some of these instructions carry a different weight for me.

A Map of the Texts

For TT2, I had also prepared a summary of yoga scriptures.

It identifies three foundational texts and then groups yoga into five paths, with representative texts for each.

The path you follow influences the texts you study. That is what this diagram illustrates.

On the reverse of the page is another diagram comparing Sāṅkhya and Vedānta.

Sāṅkhya, representing dualism, appears on the left, and Vedānta, representing non-dualism, on the right. In the Sāṅkhya diagram, Prakṛti unfolds through successive levels; on the Vedānta side, only Brahman appears, expressing the idea of a single ultimate reality.

The Sāṅkhya diagram handed out at the recent workshop and the drawing I made fourteen years ago have almost the same structure.

The Yoga Sūtras — “Yoga Is the Stilling of the Mind”

The notebook also contains several lectures on the Yoga Sūtras by Naoko Watanabe, whom I recorded as “NAO sensei.”

Rather than beginning with the text itself, she began by asking us to reflect on why we practised yoga.

“What matters is simple.” “The basics matter.” We were asked to write down why we had first started yoga. Our reasons ranged from calming the mind and easing stiff shoulders to becoming more flexible, trying something interesting or simply finding a class at the gym.

The point was that the reason we begin may not be the reason we continue. The notes describe continuing for the sake of “resetting the mind” and because “I want to,” until practice becomes as natural as brushing our teeth.

Before studying the scripture, we were asked to put our own experience of yoga into words.

From there, the title of Book One — Samādhi Pāda — was taught broken into its words. Samādhi is sam (to connect) and ādhi (source, consciousness, soul, the inside). Pāda is a chapter. So Book One is “the chapter on connecting with your true mind.”

From there we turned to Sūtras I-1, I-2 and I-12.

I-1 is atha yoga anuśāsanam. It begins with “now.” The notebook sets out what that “now” contains: moving from the inside, having strength, and how ready your own inside is. Then commitment, resolve, holding the same feeling. The very first word asks after the stance of the student.

Yoga comes from yuj (to join). Anuśāsanam is teaching handed down in an unbroken line, unshakeable.

I-2 is the famous definition. Yogaḥ cittavṛtti nirodhaḥ. Yoga is the stilling (nirodha) of the movements, workings and operations (vṛtti) of the mind (citta). The notebook adds “the deep part of the mind.”

So how do you still it? That is I-12: abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṁ tannirodhaḥ. By practice (abhyāsa) and non-attachment (vairāgya) together.

Four qualities of practice are listed: making an effort, continuing over a long period without interruption, practising with attention, and maintaining enthusiasm.

Beside the first is an arrow pointing to a reminder I had underlined: “Practice does not have to be āsana.”

The section ends with a question rather than a prescribed answer: “Which practice stills my own mind?”

Elsewhere, the mind is compared to water. When the surface is disturbed, we cannot see clearly; when it settles, clarity returns. Stilling the mind is not about destroying its activity but allowing the waves to subside.

The notebook also works backwards through the conditions for concentration: turn attention inward; steady the gaze and breath; then establish the posture that supports the breath. It begins with the purpose and traces back to the physical foundation.

Āsana originally means a seat or sitting posture. In this explanation, posture supports meditation rather than being an end in itself.

Yet the notes also say that practising āsana is a way to “converse with your own body and feel who you are today.” They even suggest that meditation can sometimes be easier in movement than in stillness, because movement demands attention.

Meditation is described as “tidying the mind” or “clearing out.” We tend to dwell on the past or anticipate the future rather than attend to the present. Meditation offers a way to reset and settle our emotions.

One final reminder reads: “Build the foundation — from the bottom up.”

In Closing — Reading It Back Fourteen Years Later

Rereading the notebook, one thing became clear.

At UTL, yoga philosophy was taught as a connected system unfolding from a single question — “Who am I?” — through the soul, the body and the elements.

The starting point was the suffering that comes from not knowing ourselves. The answer offered was that we are souls, carried through the world by our bodies. Those bodies consist of five elements, the same elements as the universe, and have three layers. The seventeen components of the subtle body direct their activity. Bodies age and are eventually left behind, while the soul is described as eternal, with the three qualities sat, cit and ānanda.

The entire account follows a single thread.

The recent workshop was not like that. It laid several worldviews side by side as a map and, rather than deciding which was correct, checked how bodily experience changes under each.

One approach develops a single system in depth; the other compares several perspectives side by side.

I do not think one is better than the other. Because I had studied the first approach fourteen years earlier, I could recognise familiar ideas in the wider map presented this time. The two experiences complemented each other.

Rereading the notebook also reminded me of something else.

Only about forty of its 216 pages concern philosophy. The rest are filled with practice records, sequence sketches and anatomy notes.

Back then, I spent relatively little time studying philosophy and far more time practising āsana. Yet those forty pages contain ideas that still inform much of my work today.

One of them is the simple commitment to admit when I do not know something.

Related

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• Is Direct Experience Being Left Out? — A Day at the Workshop “Yoga Philosophy Felt in the Body”
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