What Is Yoga
Beyond the poses - understanding yoga as a complete system for liberation
Yoga is a path of steadiness - training attention, ethics, breath, and mind so life feels clearer and less reactive. While modern yoga often emphasizes posture, classical yoga is broader: it includes how you relate to others, how you use your energy, and how you meet discomfort. The practices are practical, but their aim is inner freedom.
In the modern West, yoga has become nearly synonymous with physical postures performed on a mat. This is not wrong, exactly - asana is genuinely part of yoga - but it represents a fragment of something much larger.
Classical yoga is a complete system for liberating consciousness from suffering. Physical postures are one small component of this system, developed not as exercise but as preparation for deeper practices.
What Is the Meaning of Yoga?
The Sanskrit word yoga comes from the root yuj, meaning to yoke, join, or unite. Different traditions interpret this union in different ways:
- Union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness
- Union of mind, body, and breath
- Stilling of the fluctuations of the mind
- Integration of all aspects of the person
Patanjali, whose Yoga Sutras form the foundational text of classical yoga, defines it simply: yogash chitta vritti nirodhah - “Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind.”
When the mind is still, consciousness recognizes its own nature. This recognition is the goal of yoga.
Why Is Yoga More Than Physical Postures?
The physical postures (asana) that dominate modern yoga classes were developed for specific purposes:
- To prepare the body for prolonged sitting in meditation
- To balance the energies that flow through the subtle body
- To develop the concentration needed for deeper practices
- To purify the body and remove obstacles to clear perception
A flexible body was never the goal. The goal was always the liberation of consciousness.
This does not mean asana practice is without value. A healthy, flexible, balanced body supports the deeper practices. The problem arises when the preparation becomes mistaken for the destination.
What Are the Eight Limbs of Yoga?
Patanjali presents yoga as an eight-limbed path (ashtanga):
1. Yama - Ethical Restraints
The yamas are disciplines governing our relationship with the world:
- Ahimsa - Non-violence
- Satya - Truthfulness
- Asteya - Non-stealing
- Brahmacharya - Right use of energy
- Aparigraha - Non-grasping
2. Niyama - Observances
The niyamas are disciplines governing our relationship with ourselves:
- Saucha - Purity
- Santosha - Contentment
- Tapas - Discipline/heat
- Svadhyaya - Self-study
- Ishvara pranidhana - Surrender to a higher principle
3. Asana - Posture
Physical postures that develop stability and ease. Patanjali gives only one instruction for asana: sthira sukham asanam - “Posture should be steady and comfortable.”
4. Pranayama - Breath Control
Practices for regulating and expanding the vital force (prana) through conscious breathing. See Pranayama Foundations for detailed guidance.
5. Pratyahara - Sense Withdrawal
The turning of awareness inward, away from external sensory stimulation.
6. Dharana - Concentration
The fixing of attention on a single point or object.
7. Dhyana - Meditation
The unbroken flow of awareness toward the object of concentration.
8. Samadhi - Absorption
Complete absorption in which the distinction between meditator and object dissolves.
The last three limbs - dharana, dhyana, and samadhi - are often grouped together as samyama, the internal practice that leads to direct perception and liberation.
How Is Yoga a Complete System?
Notice that physical postures are third on this list, after ethics and observances. The order is not arbitrary. Without ethical foundation, practice becomes spiritual bypassing. Without inner discipline, advanced practices become destabilizing.
Modern yoga often begins at step three and ignores the rest. This can still bring benefits - improved flexibility, reduced stress, greater body awareness - but it misses the deeper purpose of the system.
What Are the Different Paths of Yoga?
While Patanjali’s raja yoga (the “royal path”) emphasizes meditation and mind control, the tradition recognizes multiple valid approaches:
Karma Yoga
The yoga of action - performing duty without attachment to results. Work becomes practice when done with full attention and offered without grasping at outcomes.
Bhakti Yoga
The yoga of devotion - channeling emotion toward the divine. Love and devotion purify the heart and dissolve the separate self.
Jnana Yoga
The yoga of knowledge - direct inquiry into the nature of reality. Through discrimination (viveka), the unreal is separated from the real until only truth remains.
Hatha Yoga
The yoga of force - working with the physical and subtle bodies through posture, breath, and energy practices to prepare for higher yoga.
These paths are not mutually exclusive. Most practitioners combine elements of several according to temperament and circumstance.
What Is the Goal of Yoga?
The goal of yoga is liberation (moksha) from suffering (duhkha). This liberation is not escape from the world but freedom from false identification with the limited, changing aspects of experience.
The Yoga Sutras identify five causes of suffering (kleshas):
- Avidya - Ignorance of our true nature
- Asmita - False identification with the ego
- Raga - Attachment to pleasure
- Dvesha - Aversion to pain
- Abhinivesha - Fear of death/clinging to life
All suffering traces back to the first klesha - ignorance. Not intellectual ignorance but existential misidentification: taking ourselves to be the body, mind, emotions, or roles we play, rather than the awareness in which all these appear.
Yoga practices progressively thin this veil of ignorance until what was always true becomes obvious: consciousness was never actually bound.
How Do You Begin a Yoga Practice?
If you are drawn to yoga, you might begin anywhere - with physical postures, with breathing practices, with ethical reflection, with meditation. The tradition is vast and offers many entry points.
What matters is beginning, practicing consistently, and gradually deepening your understanding of what yoga actually is. Let the physical practice open into something larger. Let the pursuit of flexibility become the pursuit of freedom.
The ancient rishis developed these practices not as religious rituals but as practical methods for investigating the nature of reality and consciousness. They offer their findings not as beliefs to adopt but as experiments to replicate.
Your own direct experience is the final authority.
How Can You Begin Your Yoga Journey?
Yoga adapts to the practitioner. Your Ayurvedic constitution shapes how you naturally approach practice - whether through movement, breath, devotion, or inquiry. Take the free Prakriti Quiz to understand your nature. For guidance on building consistent practice, see Daily Practice.