Yoga is the primary focus of a Hindu's religious activities, being somewhere between meditation, prayer and healthful exercise. Meaning union or yoking, Yoga is indicative of a broad range of practices that aim to, through physical, mental and spiritual activities, focus the individual on the true essence of reality, to achieve moksha or samadhi, liberation and enlightenment. Yoga is also one of the six darshanas (schools) of Vedic/Hindu philosophy, and as such specifically refers to Raja Yoga, the royal path of divine meditation on the one Brahman. A man who has taken up successful practice of Yoga is called a Yogi (also spelled Yogin), a woman Yogini. Several other forms of yoga exist within Hinduism including those of selfless action (Karma Yoga), selfless love (Bhakti Yoga), and discriminatory contemplation (Jnana Yoga).

Bhagvad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is the archetype of Yoga scripture. Capturing the essence and at the same time going into detail about the various Yogas and their philosophies, it was the groundstone to Yogic thought, and constantly refers to itself as such, the "Scripture of Yoga". It is spoken in the format of Lord Krishna, self-identified as a manifestation of Brahman (the impersonal, supreme force of the cosmos, the Divine Ground), to Arjuna, a warrior and friend who is loathe to go to battle that would involve his killing his own gurus (teachers) and family members. The book is contained within the Mahabharata, and is thought to have been written some time between the 5th and the 2nd century BC.

Krishna summarizes the Yogas through eighteen chapters. Yoga can fundamentally be said to comprise four main streams: Raja Yoga (psycho-physical meditation), Bhakti Yoga (devotion and love), Karma Yoga (selfless action), and Jnana (pronounced "gyaan" in the Northern states and "jnyaana" in the South of India) Yoga (self-transcending knowledge). Other forms that exist today, sprang up long after the Bhagavad Gita and Yoga Sutras and are all essentially forms of Raja Yoga.

While each path differs, their fundamental goal is one and the same: to realize Brahman (the Divine Ground), as being the only truth, that the body is temporal, but the Atman (soul) is infinite and one with Brahman. Yoga's aim (nirvana, Moksha) is essentially to escape from the cycle of reincarnation through realization of oneness with the ultimate reality. Here are some quotations from Bhagvad Gita that make up history's first real yoga text and give comprehensive definitions of the four principal Yogas:

On all Yoga in general

"When the mind comes to rest, restrained by the practice of yoga, and when beholding the Self, by the self, he is content in the Self." (B. G., Chapter 6, Verse 20) | " He who finds his happiness within, his delight within, and his light within, this yogi attains the bliss of Brahman, becoming Brahman".

On Raja Yoga

"Establishing a firm seat for himself in a clean place... having directed his mind to a single object, with his thought and the activity of the senses controlled, he should practice yoga for the purpose of self-realization. Holding the body, head and neck erect, motionless and steady, gazing at the tip of his own nose and not looking in any direction, with quieted mind, banishing fear, established in the brahmacharin vow of celibacy, controlling the mind, with thoughts fixed on Me, he should sit, concentrated, devoted to Me. Thus, continually disciplining himself, the yogin whose mind is subdued goes to nirvana, to supreme peace, to union with Me." (B.G., Chapter 6, Verses 11-15)

On Bhakti Yoga

".... those who, renouncing all actions in Me, and regarding Me as the Supreme, worship me... of those whose thoughts have entered into Me, I am soon the deliverer from the ocean of death and transmigration, Arjuna. Keep your mind on Me alone, your intellect on Me. Thus you shall dwell in me hereafter." (B.G., Chapter 12, Verses 6-8) " And he who serves me with the yoga of unswerving devotion, transcending these qualities [binary opposites, like good and evil, pain and pleasure] is ready for absorption in Brahman." (B.G. Chapter 14, Verse 26)

On Karma Yoga

"With the body, with the mind, with the intellect, even merely with the senses, the yogins perform action toward self-purification, having abandoned attachment. He who is disciplined in yoga, having abandoned the fruit of action, attains steady peace..." (B.G. Chapter 5, Verses 11-12)

On Jnana Yoga

"When he perceives the various states of being as resting in the One, and from That alone spreading out, then he attains Brahman. / They who know, through the eye of knowledge, the distinction between the field and the knower of the field, as well as the liberation of beings from material nature, go to the Supreme". (B.G. Chapter 15, Verse 31 / Verse 35)

Raja Yoga is, in general, stilling of the mind and body through meditative techniques, geared at realizing one's true nature. Bhakti Yoga is simply love and devotion, epitomized today in such practices as worship of various Hindu deities, etc. Karma Yoga is essentially acting, or doing one's duties in life, without desire or expectation of reward, a sort of constant sacrifice of action to the Supreme. It includes, but is not limited to, dedication to one's chosen profession and its perfection to God and all sorts of community service, since they are inherently done without thought of personal gain. Jnana Yoga is a process of learning to discriminate between what is real and what is not, what is eternal and what is not eternal. Simply put, Raja Yoga can be understood as meditation, Bhakti Yoga as religion, Karma Yoga as selfless labor and Jnana Yoga as philosophy.

Darshanas

One of the six darshanas (schools) of Vedic philosophy, and as such specifically refers to Raja Yoga, the royal path of divine meditation on the one Brahman. A man who has taken up successful practice of Yoga is called a Yogi (also Yogin), a woman Yogini. Several other forms of yoga exist within Hinduism including those of selfless action (Karma Yoga), selfless love (Bhakti Yoga, and discriminatory contemplation (Jnana Yoga).

Yogic is primarily connected to the Upanishads with roots in Samkhya and some see influence by Buddhism. It is a universal philosophy that enjoins the practitioner to pursue his or her own path to enlightenment, depending on personality and inclination. It is very much in line with its Vedic roots and the traditional pluralism of Hinduism. Most religions, when viewed through their spiritual standpoints without the trappings of dogma, are easily reconcilable with Yoga philosophy in general because of its transcendental message.

Tantra

While the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and Hatha Yoga Pradipika are clearly founded on thoughts of the Upanishads, much of Yoga has been influenced by and expanded into Tantra. Tantra is more ritual based, having its roots in the first millennium CE, and incorporates much more of a deist base. Almost entirely founded on Shiva and Shakti worship, Tantra visualizes the ultimate Brahman as Param Shiva, manifested through Shiva (the passive, masculine force of Lord Shiva) and Shakti (the active, creative feminine force of his consort, variously known as Ma Kali, Durga, Shakti, Parvati and others). It focuses on the Kundalini, a three and a half-coiled 'snake' of spiritual energy at the base of the spine that rises through the chakras until union between Shiva and Shakti (also known as samadhi) is achieved.

It views the body as means, rather than as obstruction, to understanding, and as such incorporates mantra (Sanskrit prayers, often to gods, that are repeated), yantra (geometric symbols representing Shakti in her various forms) and rituals that range from simple murti (statue representations of deities) or image worship to meditation on a corpse! While much tantra certainly through its many texts seems odd and highly arcane at times, it is transparent as being completely yogic. Also, injunctions are made that most people are not suitable for Tantra, especially those of pashu-bhava (animal disposition). This implies that anyone who has not observed celibacy, honesty, respect of elders, bodily cleansing, ritual cleansing through prayer, and various other processes for up to twelve years at a time, and still retains base desires, greed, sexual motivations, etc. one is not fit to practice Tantra. For this reason, even more stringently than other Yogas, Tantra, both Hindu and Buddhist, remains a strictly Guru-initiated system that as yet finds few true adepts outside of India.

The Yoga Sutra and its followers

While meditative practices like asanas (postures) and pranayama (breath control) existed long before Patanjali, his brilliant eight-limbed system was what became the standard for almost all yoga schools that followed. Raja Yoga, being difficult to achieve (one must be focused on the Supreme), several Guru (teacher) lines came to make firm methodologies of realizing it.

A side note on the Guru: Emphasized by all schools of yoga as indispensable, the Guru takes on quasi-divine proportions. Acknowledged as a siddha (adept) who has attained the eight siddhis (powers) afforded by yoga (they range from transportation of the mind to anywhere into the universe to the only truly desirable power, samadhi), the Guru guides the shisya (student) through yogic discipline from the beginning. When doing yoga, the student is urged to look long and hard for a sadguru (True Teacher) and then devote himself from imbibing that Guru's learning.

The most famous of the traditional Hindu schools of yoga, and the basis for nearly all modern systems, is Hatha Yoga. It is representative of all non-Bhakti-Karma-Jnana Yoga that has become so popular in the west today.

Teachers

Beginning with the arrival of Swami Vivekananda in 1893, there has been a steady flow of learned teachers that have brought the transcendental message of Yoga to the West. While the influence of these Yogins is deeply inscribed into the surface of the modern yogic ethos, both in India and America, a proliferation of 'yoga clinics' and non-spiritual yoga systems has been seen in the West, especially in the United States. While many Americans view it as an exercise system that simply enhances one's health, a much greater number in India still see it as it has been for over 5,000 years, whether in the Bhagvad Gita, the Yoga Sutras, the writings of the Dalai Lama, or the "Yoga Boom" of the twentieth century, a system of spirituality universal in its application.

The Great Modern Yogins

First brought into America as early as the 1890s by the great yogin and disciple of Shri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, the Hindu representative in the Chicago Parliament of World Religions, Yoga has also been transported in the arms of many other great yogins and formed into stratified schools seeking to propagate Yoga in its great spiritual context. But these teachers have made their imprint in both India and America, and continue to serve as modern embodiments of Yoga.

Swami Rama Tirtha, who came from a deep yoga tradition in the Himalayas of India, was the founding spiritual head of the Himalayan Institute. He was the first yogin to come to America and be subjected to the scrutiny of modern science. Among other things, he stunned doctors by stopping the beat of his heart completely for several minutes. Many modern schools of Hatha Yoga derive from the school of Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who taught in Mysore, India from 1931 until his death in 1993.

Sri Aurobindo, referred to as Aurobindo Ghosh by those who consider him as merely a philosopher rather than an Avatar, was not simply an intellectual genius born in West Bengal and educated in the best university in England. His masterful translations and interpretations of Hindu and Yogic scriptures are mystic and esoteric, and often are the opposite of what you will find in Max Muller's and other purely intellectual translations of the sacred Sanskrit texts, among which his translations/commentaries on the Hindu texts of the Upanishads and Gita are mystic in nature, and his epic Hindu/Yoga poem Savitri is a treasure of Hindu Yogic literature, formally being the longest poem ever written in English. Beyond this, his personal life is a fascinating testimony of the life of a true yogin. After the goddess Sri entered his being, he became Sri Aurobindo. Besides his influence and scholarly writing on Yoga, he also founded Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, that continues to propagate the practice of Integral Yoga, which is a Tantric synthesis of the four main Yogas (Karma, Jnana, Bhakti and Raja).

Gopi Krishna was a Kashmiri office worker and spiritual seeker who was born in 1903, and wrote autobiographical accounts of his spiritual experiences with Yoga. His most famous one is "Kundalini: Path to Higher Consciousness". Gopi Krishna's graphic accounts of his experiences stand out as among the clearest journals documenting a spiritual transformation. They are highly recommended as reading for anyone interested in Yogic phenomena.

Swami Sivananda (born in Pattamadai, Tamil Nadu, India in 1887), one of the greatest yoga masters of 20th century has authored over 200 highly inspiring books on yoga. Sivananda has also established Sivananda ashram of Rishikesh, Uttaranchal, India and is the founder of Divine Life Society. His disciple, Swami Satyananda (born in Almorah, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1923), has established International Yoga Fellowship movement, Bihar School of Yoga and Bihar Yoga Bharati, world's first university on yoga.
 

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