Yoga — the paths of union
योग
Also written: yoga paths · types of yoga · jnana bhakti karma raja yoga · hatha yoga · kriya yoga · योग
Yoga is from yuj — to yoke, to join. What is joined is the individual and the whole; the many yogas are many temperaments approaching that one thing. Choosing among them is not a matter of preference but of svadharma: the path that matches your grain is the one that will carry you.
The definition, and what it does not say
Patañjali gives yoga a definition of four words, and the striking thing about it is what is absent. There is no posture in it, no breath, no deity, no ethical demand — only an operation performed on the mind.
योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः॥
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
Yoga is the stilling of the modifications of the mind.
Every word is load-bearing. Citta is not 'mind' in the sense of intellect but the whole inner field — memory, ego, sensation, mood. Vṛtti is a turning, a whirl, a modification: not a thought's content but its motion. And nirodha is restraint or cessation, not destruction. Nothing is annihilated; a movement stops. Patañjali then states the consequence in a single line, and the whole of rāja yoga hangs on it.
तदा द्रष्टुः स्वरूपेऽवस्थानम्॥
tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe'vasthānam
Then the seer abides in its own nature.
| Yoga | For the nature that is | Instrument | Root text |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jñāna | Reflective, analytical, dissatisfied with second-hand answers | Enquiry, discrimination, the question 'who am I?' | The Upaniṣads; Vivekacūḍāmaṇi |
| Bhakti | Emotional, relational, moved by love before argument | Devotion, kīrtana, self-offering, the nine limbs | Bhāgavata; Nārada Bhakti Sūtra; Gītā 12 |
| Karma | Active, outward, restless in stillness | Work offered without claim on its result | Bhagavad Gītā 3 and 5 |
| Rāja | Introspective, disciplined, willing to sit | The eight limbs; the stilling of the mind | Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra |
The Gītā redefines the word twice in three verses
Karma yoga is often described as 'yoga through work', which is imprecise. Kṛṣṇa does not say that work is a yoga; he says that a particular inner posture, held while working, is yoga — and then he names that posture.
योगस्थः कुरु कर्माणि सङ्गं त्यक्त्वा धनञ्जय। सिद्ध्यसिद्ध्योः समो भूत्वा समत्वं योग उच्यते॥
yoga-sthaḥ kuru karmāṇi saṅgaṁ tyaktvā dhanañjaya siddhy-asiddhyoḥ samo bhūtvā samatvaṁ yoga ucyate
Established in yoga, perform your actions, abandoning attachment, O Dhanañjaya, remaining the same in success and in failure. Evenness is called yoga.
Samatva — sameness, evenness — is a condition of the one acting, not of the act. Note the order of the sentence: one is established in yoga first and then acts. The work does not produce the state; the state is what makes the work yoga. Two verses later the definition is given again from a different angle.
बुद्धियुक्तो जहातीह उभे सुकृतदुष्कृते। तस्माद्योगाय युज्यस्व योगः कर्मसु कौशलम्॥
buddhi-yukto jahātīha ubhe sukṛta-duṣkṛte tasmād yogāya yujyasva yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam
One joined to the discriminating intellect casts off here both good and evil deeds. Therefore devote yourself to yoga: yoga is skill in action.
The supporting methods
| Method | Works through |
|---|---|
| Haṭha | The body: āsana, prāṇāyāma, bandha, mudrā, ṣaṭkarma. Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā, Gheraṇḍa Saṁhitā, Śiva Saṁhitā |
| Laya | Dissolution of mind into the inner sound (nāda) and the bindu |
| Mantra | Sound — repetition until the mantra recites itself |
| Kriyā | Prescribed sequences of breath and attention along the spine |
| Svara | The breath's own alternation of nāḍīs, read and worked with directly |
praṇamya śrī-guruṁ nāthaṁ svātmārāmeṇa yoginā kevalaṁ rāja-yogāya haṭha-vidyopadiśyate
Having bowed to the revered guru Nātha, the yogin Svātmārāma teaches the science of haṭha solely for the sake of rāja yoga.
What the practice is aiming at
The Gītā gives the condition being sought in a single image, and the image is exact rather than poetic — it specifies not stillness but the absence of what disturbs.
यथा दीपो निवातस्थो नेङ्गते सोपमा स्मृता। योगिनो यतचित्तस्य युञ्जतो योगमात्मनः॥
yathā dīpo nivāta-stho neṅgate sopamā smṛtā yogino yata-cittasya yuñjato yogam ātmanaḥ
As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker — that is the simile remembered for the yogin of controlled mind, practising union with the Self.
A flame is not made still by holding it. It is still when nothing moves the air around it. The flame in the image is already burning and has always been burning; what changes is the room. Every method in the table above is a way of shutting a window — the body through āsana, the breath through prāṇāyāma, the senses through pratyāhāra, the emotions through bhakti, the reasoning mind through enquiry.
What they share
- All begin with yama and niyama — conduct first. There is no yoga that starts at the cushion.
- All require a teacher, because the errors are invisible from inside.
- All are gradual and cumulative; the texts are uniformly hostile to shortcuts.
- All treat the siddhis — the powers that arise on the way — as obstacles, not achievements.
And all of them are ranked, in the Gītā, above the disciplines they are commonly confused with — a ranking that is worth reading carefully, because of what it places the yogin above.
तपस्विभ्योऽधिको योगी ज्ञानिभ्योऽपि मतोऽधिकः। कर्मिभ्यश्चाधिको योगी तस्माद्योगी भवार्जुन॥
tapasvibhyo'dhiko yogī jñānibhyo'pi mato'dhikaḥ karmibhyaś cādhiko yogī tasmād yogī bhavārjuna
The yogin is greater than the ascetics, greater even than the learned, greater than the performers of rites. Therefore be a yogin, Arjuna.
Austerity, scholarship and ritual are each placed below yoga, and each of the three is a thing a person can display. What is left when they are subtracted is an inner condition nobody else can see. That is the ranking's whole content: the tradition puts the invisible above the demonstrable, which is precisely why it insists on a teacher who can tell the difference.
In this section
Svara Yoga — the science of the breath
The tradition that reads the breath itself: iḍā, piṅgalā and suṣumnā, the five tattvas carried in the flow, the pause as the doorway, and the Śiva Svarodaya.
Dhyāna — meditation
What meditation is in this tradition: the progression from dhāraṇā to samādhi, the main methods, the obstacles Patañjali names, and the honest description of what to expect.
Mantra and japa
What a mantra is, why sound is treated as more than a carrier of meaning, the great mantras, the forms of japa, and the role of initiation.
Pūjā — daily worship
The sixteen offerings of the classical rite, what image worship actually means in the tradition's own terms, and the shape of a daily practice at home.
Svara Yoga — the science of the breath
The tradition that reads the breath itself: iḍā, piṅgalā and suṣumnā, the five tattvas carried in the flow, th…
Dhyāna — meditation
What meditation is in this tradition: the progression from dhāraṇā to samādhi, the main methods, the obstacles…
Mantra and japa
What a mantra is, why sound is treated as more than a carrier of meaning, the great mantras, the forms of japa…
Pūjā — daily worship
The sixteen offerings of the classical rite, what image worship actually means in the tradition's own terms, a…
Last revised 2026-08-16. Corrections are welcome — see how this site is written.