Yoga
Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain liberation, as practiced in the Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions. Modern forms of Yoga are practiced worldwide, often entailing posture-based physical fitness, stress-relief and relaxation technique.
Yoga may have pre-Vedic origins, but is first attested in the early first millennium BCE. It developed as various traditions in the eastern Ganges basin, and drew from a common body of practices, including Vedic elements. Yoga-like practices are mentioned in the Rigveda and a number of early Upanishads, but systematic yoga concepts emerged during the fifth and sixth centuries BCE in ancient India's ascetic and Śramaṇa movements, including Jainism and Buddhism. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the classical text on Hindu yoga, samkhya-based but influenced by Buddhism, dates to the early centuries of the Common Era. Hatha yoga texts began to emerge between the ninth and 11th centuries, originating in Tantra.
"Yoga" in the Western world is often a modern form of Hatha yoga consisting largely of asanas; this differs from traditional yoga, which focuses on meditation and release from worldly attachments. It was introduced by gurus from India after the success of Swami Vivekananda's adaptation of yoga without asanas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Vivekananda introduced the Yoga Sutras to the West, and they became prominent after the 20th-century success of hatha yoga. In 1925, Paramahansa Yogananda started a Kriya Yoga centre in Los Angeles, becoming one of the first Yoga teachers in the United States.
Etymology
The Sanskrit noun योग ' is derived from the root ' "to attach, join, harness, yoke". According to Jones and Ryan, "The word yoga is derived from the root yuj, "to yoke", probably because the early practice concentrated on restraining or "yoking in" the senses. Later the name was also seen as a metaphor for "linking" or "yoking to" the divine."Buswell and Lopez translate "yoga" as "'bond', 'restraint', and by extension "spiritual discipline." Flood refers to restraining the mind as yoking the mind.
Yoga is a cognate of the English word "yoke," since both are derived from an Indo-European root. According to Mikel Burley, the first use of the root of the word "yoga" is in hymn 5.81.1 of the Rigveda, a dedication to the rising Sun-god, where it has been interpreted as "yoke" or "control".
Pāṇini wrote that the term yoga can be derived from either of two roots: yujir yoga or yuj samādhau. In the context of the Yoga Sutras, the root yuj samādhau is considered the correct etymology by traditional commentators. In accordance with Pāṇini, Vyasa says that yoga means samadhi. Larson notes that in the Vyāsa Bhāsy the term "samadhi" refers to "all levels of mental life", that is, "all possible states of awareness, whether ordinary or extraordinary".
A person who practices yoga, or follows the yoga philosophy with a high level of commitment, is called a yogi; a female yogi may also be known as a yogini.
Definition
Definitions in classical texts
The term "yoga" has been defined in different ways in Indian philosophical and religious traditions.| Source Text | Approx. Date | Definition of Yoga |
| Maitrayaniya Upanishad | c. 4th century BCE | "Because in this manner he joins the Prana, the Om, and this Universe in its manifold forms, or because they join themselves, therefore this is called Yoga. The oneness of breath, mind, and senses, and then the surrendering of all conceptions, that is called Yoga" |
| Vaisesika sutra | c. 4th century BCE | "Pleasure and suffering arise as a result of the drawing together of the sense organs, the mind and objects. When that does not happen because the mind is in the self, there is no pleasure or suffering for one who is embodied. That is yoga" |
| Katha Upanishad | last centuries BCE | "When the five senses, along with the mind, remain still and the intellect is not active, that is known as the highest state. They consider yoga to be firm restraint of the senses. Then one becomes un-distracted for yoga is the arising and the passing away" |
| Bhagavad Gita | c. 2nd century BCE | "Be equal minded in both success and failure. Such equanimity is called Yoga" "Yoga is skill in action" "Know that which is called yoga to be separation from contact with suffering" |
| Yoga Sutras of Patanjali | c. first centuries CE | 1.2. yogas chitta vritti nirodhah – "Yoga is the calming down the fluctuations/patterns of mind" 1.3. Then the Seer is established in his own essential and fundamental nature. 1.4. In other states there is assimilation with the modifications. |
| Yogabhasya | same as Yoga Sutras | yoga samadhih - "samadhi is yoga," referring to ekagrata, one-pointedness, and niruddha, that is, contentless samadhi |
| Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra , a Mahayana Buddhist Yogacara work | 4th century CE | "Yoga is fourfold: faith, aspiration, perseverance and means" |
| Kaundinya's Pancarthabhasya on the Pashupata-sutra | 4th century CE | "In this system, yoga is the union of the self and the Lord" |
| Yogaśataka a Jain work by Haribhadra Suri | 6th century CE | "With conviction, the lords of Yogins have in our doctrine defined yoga as the concurrence of the three beginning with correct knowledge, since conjunction with liberation....In common usage this yoga also contact with the causes of these , due to the common usage of the cause for the effect.". |
| Linga Purana | "By the word 'yoga' is meant nirvana, the condition of Shiva." | |
| Brahmasutra-bhasya of Adi Shankara | c. 8th century CE | "It is said in the treatises on yoga: 'Yoga is the means of perceiving reality' " |
| Mālinīvijayottara Tantra, one of the primary authorities in non-dual Kashmir Shaivism | 6th–10th century CE | "Yoga is said to be the oneness of one entity with another." |
| Mrgendratantravrtti, of the Shaiva Siddhanta scholar Narayanakantha | 6th–10th century CE | "To have self-mastery is to be a Yogin. The term Yogin means "one who is necessarily "conjoined with" the manifestation of his nature...the Siva-state " |
| Śaradatilaka of Lakshmanadesikendra, a Shakta Tantra work | 11th century CE | "Yogic experts state that yoga is the oneness of the individual Self with the atman. Others understand it to be the ascertainment of Siva and the Self as non-different. The scholars of the Agamas say that it is a Knowledge which is of the nature of Siva's Power. Other scholars say it is the knowledge of the primordial Self." |
| Yogabija, a Hatha yoga work | 14th century CE | "The union of apana and prana, one's own rajas and semen, the sun and moon, the individual Self and the supreme Self, and in the same way the union of all dualities, is called yoga. " |
Scholarly definitions
Due to its complicated historical development, and the broad array of definitions and usage in Indian religions, scholars have warned that yoga is hard, if not impossible, to define exactly. David Gordon White notes that "'Yoga' has a wider range of meanings than nearly any other word in the entire Sanskrit lexicon."In its broadest sense, yoga is a generic term for techniques aimed at controlling body and mind and attaining a soteriological goal as specified by a specific tradition:
- Richard King : "Yoga in the more traditional sense of the term has been practised throughout South Asia and beyond and involves a multitude of techniques leading to spiritual and ethical purification. Hindu and Buddhist traditions alike place a great deal of emphasis upon the practice of yoga as a means of attaining liberation from the world of rebirth and yogic practices have been aligned with a variety of philosophical theories and metaphysical positions."
- John Bowker : "The means or techniques for transforming consciousness and attaining liberation from karma and rebirth in Indian religions."
- Damien Keown : "Any form of spiritual discipline aimed at gaining control over the mind with the ultimate aim of attaining liberation from rebirth."
- W. J. Johnson : "A generic term for a wide variety of religious practices At its broadest, however, ‘yoga’ simply refers to a particular method or discipline for transforming the individual A narrower reading makes the practice contingent on, or derived from, control of the body and the senses, as in haṭha-yoga, or control of the breath and through it the mind, as in Patañjali's rājayoga. At its most neutral, yoga is therefore simply a technique, or set of techniques, including what is usually termed ‘meditation’, for attaining whatever soteriological or soteriological-cum-physiological transformation a particular tradition specifies."
- A disciplined method for attaining a goal
- Techniques of controlling the body and mind
- A name of a school or system of philosophy
- With prefixes such as "hatha-, mantra-, and laya-, traditions specialising in particular yoga techniques
- The goal of yoga practice
- A meditative means of discovering dysfunctional perception and cognition, as well as overcoming it to release any suffering, find inner peace, and salvation. Illustration of this principle is found in Hindu texts such as the Bhagavad Gita and Yogasutras, in a number of Buddhist Mahāyāna works, as well as Jain texts.
- The raising and expansion of consciousness from oneself to being coextensive with everyone and everything. These are discussed in sources such as in Hinduism Vedic literature and its epic Mahābhārata, the Jain Praśamaratiprakarana, and Buddhist Nikaya texts.
- A path to omniscience and enlightened consciousness enabling one to comprehend the impermanent and permanent reality. Examples of this are found in Hinduism Nyaya and Vaisesika school texts as well as Buddhism Mādhyamaka texts, but in different ways.
- A technique for entering into other bodies, generating multiple bodies, and the attainment of other supernatural accomplishments. These are, states White, described in Tantric literature of Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as the Buddhist Sāmaññaphalasutta.
A classic definition of yoga in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras 1.2 and 1.3, defines yoga as "the stilling of the movements of the mind," and recognises Purusha, the witness-consciousness, as different from Prakriti, mind and matter. According to Larson, in the context of the Yoga Sutras, yoga has two meanings. The first meaning is yoga "as a general term to be translated as "disciplined meditation" that focuses on any of the many levels of ordinary awareness." In the second meaning yoga is "that specific system of thought that has for its focus the analysis, understanding and cultivation of those altered states of awareness that lead one to the experience of spiritual liberation."
Another classic understanding sees yoga as union or connection with the highest Self, Brahman, or God, a "union, a linking of the individual to the divine." This definition is based on the devotionalism of the Bhagavad Gita, and the jnana yoga of Vedanta.
While yoga is often conflated with the "classical yoga" of Patanjali's yoga sutras, Karen O'Brien-Kop notes that "classical yoga" is informed by, and includes, Buddhist yoga. Regarding Buddhist yoga, James Buswell in his Encyclopedia of Buddhism treats yoga in his entry on meditation, stating that the aim of meditation is to attain samadhi, which serves as the foundation for vipasyana, "discerning the real from the unreal," liberating insight into true reality. Buswell & Lopez state that "in Buddhism, a generic term for soteriological training or contemplative practice, including tantric practice."
O'Brien-Kop further notes that "classical yoga" is not an independent category, but "was informed by the European colonialist project."