Yogis discovered a third way, a path that does not split the world into two pain and pleasure, right and wrong, good and bad, sacred and profane. They discovered a path that does not require us to suppress the energy of desire, but allows, us to fully experience it. Patanjali writes of his third way as the development of a kind of “impartially in the spheres of pleasure and pain, virtue and vice.”
The fifteenth-century scripture called Vedantasara The Essence of the Doctrines of Vedanta describes the practice of titiksa, a cultivation of an attitude of impartiality, patients, and endurance towards the pairs of opposites, a practice this scripture honors as one of the six treasures of life.
This impartiality and neutrality towards polarities referred to by some modern yogis, as choiceless awareness. Choiceless awareness is the third way because when we are practicing it, we do not push away any sensation. We do not believe the pairs of opposites can be separated. Rather, we develop our capacity to experience the way things are, to live each moment fully, to receive the whole light and sounds show.
In a sense, we do not choose against any experience, we choose for all of it.