Yoga and meditation traditions
More than 300 million people practise yoga worldwide. But the yoga of the Gita, of Patanjali and of the Hatha yogis were very different things. Trace yoga's journey — and what modern research says about it.
The verse
What "yoga" means
[Traditional account]
Yoga comes from yuj, "to yoke, to join" — to unite the self with the divine, or to discipline the mind. In the Bhagavad Gita, yoga means many things: skill in action (2.50), equanimity (2.48), devotion, and meditation. In Patanjali's Yoga Sutras it is "the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind" (1.2).
Many yogas
[Historical scholarship]
Indian tradition speaks of jnana yoga (knowledge), bhakti yoga (devotion), karma yoga (selfless action) and raja yoga (meditation). The postures most people now call "yoga" belong to a later tradition — Hatha Yoga — whose story begins with a lineage of wandering ascetics…
The journey continues for members
- The Hatha yogis
- Modern postural yoga
- What research shows
- The yoga beyond the mat
- What we can learn
Sources
- Yoga Sutras — Patanjali
- Hatha Yoga Pradipika — Svatmarama
- Bhagavad Gita — 2.48, 2.50, ch. 6
- Mark Singleton — Yoga Body (2010)
- UNESCO — Yoga (2016)