When through ignorance one believes to have known everything, considering that nothing more exists to be known, then, instigated by the question ‘What is that which is beyond ordinary knowledge?’ they responded.

Here is described the common human condition: avidyā (spiritual ignorance) that makes us believe that the accumulated knowledge of the senses and intellect is sufficient. Vijñāna (ordinary knowledge) gives us illusory security. In our yoga practice, we experience this when we think we have mastered a physical posture without having touched its inner dimension. The profound question —“what lies beyond?”— is the spark that initiates true jñāna, the transcendent knowledge that reveals itself beyond the ordinary categories of thought.