Question

Would the following jnana yoga approach in the vein of self-inquiry be correct?

S1. A thought arises

S2. I close my eyes

S3. Then I ask: “Who is getting this thought?” (I experience a slowness in my breath and inevitably get an answer.)

S4. I live in the moment.

Is this the right process?

Answer

The point of jnana yoga is to cut right through your most basic assumptions.

You mentioned bhakti yoga when you wrote earlier that “there is a level of comfort where Bhakti Yoga supports the dissociation by prayers and love to a deity and guru of interest.” 

How would the direct path teaching of jnana yoga reply? It might very well ask: “Is there a God-form without a seemingly pre-existing ego-form?” Consider, in this connection, what Ramana Maharshi says in Forty Verses On What Is:

All religions postulate the three fundamentals–the world, the soul, and God–but it is only the one Reality that manifests Itself as these three. One can say, “The three are really three” only so long as the ego lasts. Therefore, to inhere in one’s own Being, where the “I,” or ego, is dead, is the perfect State.

The most basic assumption is the I am the body identity (= ego). Understand that self-inquiry is specifically designed to “destroy” the ego identity!

Now to your question: 

Yes, the procedure is right, provided that you experience, in Step 3, the I-thought: the specific sense that the I, which is illumination, is “somehow” limited by a form, a presence, a boundary (= body). For instance, if I tell you, “Go to where you feel the center of your experience,” you’ll probably go to a spot behind the third eye or behind the chest. This, you could say, is the I-thought.

Now that you’ve discovered the I-thought, you can go onto the next step. In Step 4, you can “hold onto” the I-thought. Or you can probe the I-thought by asking what it truly is. Or you can surrender the I-thought (nondual bhakti). Holding, probing, or surrendering: any of these is fine. Any will reveal that the ego is ultimately nonexistent.