Now every Agama has 4 types of content. One is the Kriya Pada. Kriya Pada are all the rituals, all the practices, everything, like Prana Pratishtha, like offering water, offering Achmaneeyam, doing the mudras, all of those things, everything which can be contained broadly in the category of ritual or spiritual process, that is the Kriya Pada. So Kriya Pada, this classification is actually mentioned in the Kamika Agama itself and at the end of every chapter it says which Pada it belongs to. Now, Pada, by the way, is not ‘step’. It is ‘part’. So, all four, it’s not like you go step by step, not at all. These are 4 parts and all 4 have to be practiced.
Carya is the lifestyle aspects. So for example, when should you take bath, why should you take bath, what kind of purifications should you be doing, all those things are lifestyles things, what should you be doing for brushing your teeth, to that detail Mahadeva has given in the Agamas. So all the lifestyle things are the Carya Pada.
Yoga Pada is literally rewiring your body to experience Oneness, to experience the Truth of Shivoham. So all the asanas, all the pranayama,, dharana, Dhyana, samadhi, everything, all.. everything that you know goes with rewiring your body is the Yoga Pada.
Jnana Pada is the spiritual truths. All the knowledge which you need to realize everything in the Cosmos. So Mahadeva’s definition of jnana is not just knowledge, that’s like a very weak word, but knowledge of realizing everything. By everything it means that knowledge is also the possibility of knowing everything, everything means that’s why Mahadeva is called Sarvagya, right. Sarvagya means the capacity to know everything. So, knowledge here, or jnana here is not like just knowledge like, what you read in books is also knowledge, but that’s not the knowledge He’s talking about. Knowledge of enlightenment and knowledge about knowing everything, how can you know everything, that is given.
