The Roots of Yoga

"Yoga is like an ancient river," explains yoga scholar Georg Feuerstein. "It has countless rapids, eddies, loops, tributaries, and backwaters and extends over a vast, colorful terrain of many different habitats." The roots of yoga are complex, ancient, and only scantily known. "So, when we speak of yoga, we speak of a multitude of paths and orientations with contrasting theoretical frameworks and occasionally incompatible goals."

Orthodox Hinduism is based on the Vedic revelation, as contained in the four Vedas - Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharva. These are India's sacred scriptures, whose ancient origins are unknown. The Vedic orthodoxy accords validity to six schools (or darshana, "points of view"): Purva-Mimamsa, Vedanta, Samkhya, Nyaya, Vaiseshika, and Yoga. (Some scholars add Buddhism as the seventh.) Each school has its founding sage and canonical sutra.

The Purva-Mimamsa ("earlier discussion") school, founded by Jaimini (c. 200 B.C.), is a philosophy of ritualism, a catalogue of priestly duties, a science of moral action, and a schema for ethical behavior.

Vedanta also called Uttara-Mimamsa ("later discussion"), means "Veda's end." Formulated by Shankaracharya (788820), it is fundamentally monistic and nondualistic and is based on the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, and the Brahma Sutra. Some believe Shankaracharya to be a divine incarnation of Shiva; in any case, he taught that reality is a single, indivisible whole. Shankaracharya founded 10 new orders of swamis and established four holy seats (maths) throughout India, important Hindu "bishoprics" still occupied and revered today.

The Samkhya ("number") school, founded by the sage Kapila and elaborated by Ishvara Krishna (c. 350 A.D.), is Vedanta's intellectual rival in the Hindu fold. Samkhya concerns itself with the number and description of the categories of existence. Its focus is the plurality of being, and its methods emphasize discrimination within a dualistic framework involving spirit (purusha) and matter (Prakriti).

The Nyaya ("rule") system, established around 500 B.C. by Gautama (not to be confused with the historical Buddha), taught rules for logic, rhetoric, and causation and proposed a general theory of knowledge.

Kanabhaksa formulated the tenets of Vaiseshika around 600 B.C. He described six fundamental categories of existence and stressed the differences (vaisesha) between things.

Classical Yoga ("union") was propounded in 196 sutras by the great sage Patanjali, who lived in the second century A.D. Hindu tradition contends that Patanjali was an incarnation of Ananta, Vishnu's thousand-headed Lord of the Serpents, the race that guarded the secret treasures of Earth. With his systematic treatise on yoga practice, Patanjali "supplied the yoga tradition with a reasonably homogeneous framework that could stand up against the many rival traditions," explains Feuerstein.

Within the school of Yoga, six major forms have gained prominence and comprise '.bats called the Wheel of Yoga.

Raja yoga is "the resplendent yoga of slirilol hips.' says Feuerstein. It is the eightfold high road of contemplation and meditation.

Hatha yoga, Hatha is a general category that includes most yoga styles. It is an old system that includes the practice of asanas (yoga postures) and pranayama (breathing exercises), which help bring peace to the mind and body, preparing the body for deeper spiritual practices such as meditation.

Jnana yoga, which cultivates the eye of wisdom, is a non-dualistic path of Self-realization through inspired reason, understanding, and discernment. It is often associated with the teaching known as advaita ("nondual") Vedanta.

With bhakti yoga, the path of Bhakti yoga, also called Bhakti marga (literally the path of Bhakti), is a spiritual path or spiritual practice within Hinduism focused on loving devotion towards a personal god.

Karma yoga, the paths to spiritual liberation in Hinduism, karma yoga is the path of unselfish action. It teaches that a spiritual seeker should act according to dharma, without being attached to the fruits or personal consequences. Karma Yoga, states the Bhagavad Gita, purifies the mind.

Laya yoga, Laya yoga is a yoga form in which dissolution of self and merging with the Supreme Consciousness are achieved. Laya is a Sanskrit term meaning "dissolve." Laya yoga leads to the state of samadhi, which is the highest unification with the Divine. It leads the mind from the state of manifestation and dissolution to moola Prakriti, meaning "original state."Though it may also be referred to as Kundalini yoga as it awakens the kundalini power, Laya yoga works from the Sahasrara (crown chakra) at the top of the body and flows down through the lower chakras to awaken kundalini.

Raja yoga (also called Ashtanga yoga or eightfold path) in Sanskrit texts, Raja yoga was both the goal of yoga and a method of attaining it. The term also became a modern name for the practice of yoga, when in the 19th-century Swami Vivekananda equated raja yoga with the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Pratyahara, “Pratyahara” means literally “control of ahara,” or “gaining mastery over external influences.” It has been compared to a turtle withdrawing into its shell—the turtle's shell is the mind and the turtle's limbs are the senses. The term is usually translated as “withdrawal from the senses,” but much more is implied. “Ahara” means “food,” or “anything we take into ourselves from the outside.” “Prati” is a preposition meaning “against” or “away.” “Pratyahara” means literally “control of ahara,” or “gaining mastery over external influences”. Patanjali says that when an asana is correctly preformed, the dualities between body and mind, mind and soul, have to vanish.