What is YOGA?

Atha yoga anushasanam

Now, the teachings of yoga.

—Yoga Sutra 1.1

It might first be easier to understand what yoga is not. Yoga is not an exercise routine, or a path to fitness. It isn’t meant to make you more flexible, or stronger. Yoga is not about achieving the fanciest pose or standing on your head. It’s not about achieving at all. It is not a religion or a strict set of rules to follow. 

In Sanskrit, the word yoga means to yoke or unite. You might find that you connect to your body by uniting breath to movement. You might also find that you connect to others in the room by moving through poses together. You might find that you connect to different parts of yourself as you try and explore different shapes. You might connect to other parts of yourself as you allow yourself to slow down. All these points of connection are ways for you, the individual, to re-connect to or re-unite with your own divine Self. You might think of this reunion as a drop of water (you) returning to the ocean (the divine Self). 

A really cool metaphor used to describe yoga is as follows (from the ancient text the Bhagavad Gita, summarized here by Max Strom: 

There’s a wonderful metaphor from the yoga tradition that vividly depicts the plight of the average person and points the way to a more meaningful life. It’s the carriage allegory. The carriage represents the body, the horses pulling the carriage represent the emotions, the driver is the mind, and the passenger is the soul. The story goes that the state of the average person is as follows; the carriage is in terrible disrepair, the horses are half-wild, the driver is unfocused and drunk, and the passenger is asleep. The passenger, a king or queen, is asleep, dreaming he/she is a prisoner. Yoga, it is said, repairs the carriage (body), tames the horses (emotions), sobers and focuses the driver (mind), and ultimately - reawakens the passenger (soul). The soul then remembers his or her true purpose and instructs the driver on which route to take to their ultimate destination. This is the purpose of yoga, anything less is simply exercise.

Yoga asana, the physical poses, are only one part of the bigger picture of yoga. In the coming weeks, we will explore the others. Stay tuned!

What is YOGA Pt. 2