Yoga is a practice for cultivating awareness by quieting the mind and optimizing the health of the body. You may think that yoga involves either sitting on the floor for long periods of time in a cross-legged meditation posture, or at the other extreme, performing difficult physical feats like standing on your head. In reality, "yoga" includes activities like these, as well as "off the mat" practices like performing volunteer work and maintaining healthy relationships.

Yoga comes from the Sanskrit word yuj which means yoke or join. It’s usually translated as union, and for good reason. The yogic ideal is to transcend our ego-based personality (the person we behave as on a normal day) and become our most evolved self or essential nature. A number of practices, like executing postures, performing explicit breathing exercises, and meditation, can help remove the obstructions that prevent us from operating in this "evolved" way.

Yoga is a set of spiritual practices but it is not a religion. Although some people practice yoga out of devotion to a guru or special teacher, yoga does not necessarily include a "God" as we know one in the Western religious sense.

History of Yoga
No one knows exactly when yoga began. There is evidence of people practicing yoga in ancient East Indian artifacts (some dated as far back as 3000 BCE). Stone carvings show people in seated postures, and depict animals as important to the belief system of the people who lived at that time. The role of animals is interesting because some yoga poses are named after animals as well as items in nature (such as the moon and the sun).

It was not until a man named Patañjali (Pa-tan-ja-lee) came along that yoga was articulated as a discipline. In approximately 200 CE, Patañjali summarized the yogic practices that were already underway in the Yoga Sutra, a set of 196 short, terse statements that describe a number of alternatives including an eight-step system called Ashtanga yoga. (The word Ashtanga means eight limbs in Sanskrit although it is currently in use to describe a popular type of postural practice.) This goal of Ashtanga yoga is to refine the mind and focus the attention, instead of allowing the mind to be distracted, as is usually the case.

Ways of Practicing Yoga

Hatha
Most Westerners come to yoga through hatha, the practice of postures and breathing exercises. Any practice primarily based around postures and breathing is hatha yoga, although different schools have adopted unique names to describe their particular approach.

Raja
Raja yoga, or the Royal path, is another name for Patañjali’s eight-step Ashtanga yoga system. The eight steps are:

1. Yama - Behaviors we cultivate to have beneficial relationships with others and the environment: non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, sexual or energetic restraint, non-possessiveness.
2. Niyama - Behaviors we cultivate to enhance ourselves: purity, contentment, consistent practice, self-awareness, and releasing attachment to results.
3. Asana - Practice of postures to enhance health
4. Pranayama - Cultivation of vital energy through explicit breathing exercises
5. Pratyahara - Releasing attention to the senses in preparation for meditation
6. Dharana - Focusing on the chosen object of meditation
7. Dhyana - Establishing a relationship with the object of meditation
8. Samadhi - Integration or absorption with the object of meditation

Bhakti
The yoga of devotion is called bhakti yoga. The most visible example of bhakti practice in Western culture is the Hare Krishna movement, but anyone who desires contact with the Divine through yoga is a bhakti practitioner.

Karma
You’ve probably heard of "karma" even if you only have a vague idea what it means. Karma yoga is the yoga of action, selfless service towards others. The ultimate act of karma yoga is to live each day in service to one’s duty without regard for personal achievement.

Jñana
People who desire to understand ultimate knowledge of the reality of life are practicing jñana yoga, the yoga of knowledge. Jñana yogis are not after facts, but an understanding of where we come from, why we’re here, and where we go after death.

Contemporary Yoga Practice
A man named Krishnamacharya, who lived in India from 1888 to 1989, was a prominent and highly respected yogi responsible for establishing the primary schools of hatha yoga that currently exist. Some of today’s most important and well-known yoga teachers were students of Krishnamacharya, including B.K.S. Iyengar, the late Pattabhi Jois, and T.K.V. Desikachar.