Religious Scholar

In The Yoga Sutras Book I, Verse 7, Patanjali lists three types of “right knowledge. “  In my transliteration of the Sutras, Threads of Yoga (copyright 2008)

http://www.religiousscholar.com/storage/Threads%20of%20Yoga%20by%20L%20B%20Holt.pdf,

 I describe them as follows:

• ·         Direct perception
• ·         Inference
• ·         Reliable testimony

(Edwin F. Bryant translates these as sense perception, logic, and verbal testimony. The Yoga Sutras, North Point Press, 2009.)

Direct perception is when you actually see or experience something.  In a lecture at Thomas Jefferson University on Jan. 15, 2012, Dr. Vijayendra Pratap, psychologist and yoga teacher, offered the example of a building on fire. You see the fire, and you know it exists.

Inference is when you perceive traces or suggestions that something exists.  If you see a red glow on the horizon, hear fire trucks, and smell smoke, you may infer that there is a fire.

Reliable testimony is when you are not present, but an informed source, such as a journalist, your trusted neighbor who actually witnessed it, or a firefighter who was there says there has been a fire.  

Applied to religion and spirituality, these are the tests of truth. You know your faith is true because you have experienced it directly. You infer that it is true because you have seen evidences of it in the world around you.  And in divine scripture, you find the testimony of revered sages who assert that it is true.  As these tests apply to knowledge, they also apply to Divine Love.