Part Two — How do we know?
A short note before we start

Matthijs Cornelissen
last revision: 18 February 2024

 
With Part Two, we have arrived at the very essence of what this text is about: the idea that the way of acquiring knowledge the hard sciences have developed is not the only one that can be perfected. There are other ways of acquiring knowledge that can be perfected, and to know ourselves — and even the world in its total magnificence — we need all of them.

So we'll start with a discussion of the broader domain of knowledge, the different ways of arriving at knowledge we humans have at our disposal and what each of them can best be used for.

In the second chapter we will explore how yoga-based techniques and other elements of Indian know-how can be used to make these other ways of acquiring knowledge precise, detailed, and reliable.

In the third chapter we'll take up the question, how these yoga-based approaches to psychological knowledge can be introduced into mainstream academia so that they can be more easily vetted, shared, used, and in the end, collectively, become more quickly progressive.

The findings and practical applications of these different ways of acquiring knowledge we will then take up in Part Three — Who am I?, Part Four — Working on Oneself, and finally in Part Five — Working with Others.