Over the last few decades or so, especially in Western countries, many people have become
acquainted with Yoga as an effective way to become more relaxed and healthy. The
primary aim of Yoga, however, extends beyond the cultivation of physical and
emotional well-being to promote a spiritual vision of the transcendence of
mundane existence through the realisation of the Divine, the Absolute, the
Ultimately Real. This transcendence can be interpreted as the ultimate healing,
as it promises liberation from the suffering and limitations of our daily lives
and the attainment of our highest potential.
The term Yoga refers to both the goal and the means of attaining it. In the first sense Yoga denotes a
state of perfect transcendence, while in the second it represents the vast
array of paths, schools, principles and practices that have been developed to
attain this end.
Yoga cannot be interpreted as a religion in the conventional sense if for no other reason than
its presence and influence in all the major religious paths that have their
origin in India: namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. Rather than
being a formal or institutional response to the human desire for the Divine,
Yoga in its broadest sense is the working out of this desire in the life of the
individual spiritual seeker.
The great diversity in the many paths of Yoga cautions us not to be dogmatic or rigidly sectarian in the
way we regard the ends and means of our spiritual inclinations. The nineteenth
century Bengali saint Sri Ramakrishna is reported to have often stressed that
the fundamental goal of human life is the realisation of God or the Divine, and
that goal can be approached in an indefinite number of ways: ‘As many paths as
there are aspirants.’
The impressive complexity that the full breadth of the tradition of Yoga presents reflects this need for
a multitude of ways to the common goal of liberation. However there are
recognisable emphases in this tradition that are represented by the major paths
of Yoga. The differences between these paths relate to how Yoga is conceived
and how it is to be realised.
For instance Jnana-yoga, the yoga of knowledge or
wisdom, conceives the Absolute or Brahman as impersonal and aims to realise the
Self as identical with it. In contrast Bhakti-yoga, the yoga of devotion,
upholds the primacy of a personal God and seeks a union that doesn’t extinguish
the distinction between oneself and God. Different again, Raja-yoga maintains a
fundamental distinction between nature (prakrti) and the Self (purusa), and it
is our ignorance of this distinction that causes us to be bound to the cycle of
rebirth.
The articles below provide an introduction to the principles and practices of the
major paths of Hindu Yoga, as well as brief resumes of some of the most
influential styles of Yoga today.
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