What Yoga Is?

 Atha Yoganusasanam

Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah

The first two sutras in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

Translated : 1. Now the exposition of Yoga is being made....2. The Restraint of the modification of the mind-stuff is Yoga

The definition of Yoga according to Satchidananda's translation as listed in the glossary at the end of "The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali" is as follows:

Yoga= (lit.union) union of the individual with the Absolute; any course that makes for such union; unruffled state of mind under all conditions. 

So Yoga is  "union" which is Oneness. Breaking that definition of Union down farther, there are three things Yoga is:

1. union of the individual with the Absolute

2. any course that makes such a union

3. unruffled state of mind under all conditions.

1. Union of the individual with the Absolute?

Yoga is about realizing that all is One...there is no separation. One of the toughest things for us to get past is this idea of separation and individuality. 

What you call the external world is as much you as your own body.  Your skin does not separate you, it is a bridge from which the external world flows into you and you flow into it.

Alan Watts

This is one quote that made me visualize that I was not separate from others.  I have been working on that concept of separation for years. I always knew at some level I cannot explain that we are not separated by body lines yet I could never "explain" it, "see" it in this very limited version of mind I personalized and called "my mind," I did a lot of crazy things with this mind...but one of the craziest things I did was create a "personal version " of this expansive and Absolute mind, from that I created a "me", and from there I made this amazing Life "all about me". I focused on the separate "me"  at the exclusion of focusing on the Absolute within me.  Through this attachment to the idea of separation. I could not see there never was a "me" ...just this Absolute experiencing Itself through this human. 

To see that these bodies are just bridges...a means of experiencing our connection to this Oneness of all...that the senses allow us to experience it all, is very eye-opening.  The senses are not meant to create this need for preference and aversion that we tend to use them for. They are meant to allow the Absolute to experience Iself through us...and we are that Absolute that is experiencing...therefore It is the Absolute experiencing Itself...This is Union.  This is Oneness. 

If I am not separate by skin from the external world,  I am not separate from anything. I am not separate from Reality, from Life, from God. Coming to that realization, what Maharshi called, "Self-realization" is Yoga. This flows into the third Sutra in Patanjali's Sutras: 

Then the seer (Self) abides in Its own nature.

This, then, takes us to the second part of Patanjali's definition of Yoga.

2. Any Course that makes such a union? 

How do we get to this realization? 

I love this for the lack of specific direction it provides.  Yoga is "Any Course". It doesn't define one path as the right path, and another as the wrong. Patanjali offers a path through his eight limbs but he never proposes that this is the only way. The Indian culture from which Yoga emerged has always been the most open culture to religious diversity. 

Truth is One, Paths are Many.

Whatever sadhanna we practice, whatever path we follow, what every religious doctrine we identify with...if we are seeking the One Truth, the Absolute...we are on the right path. 

3. Unruffled state of mind under all conditions?

We are here to accept, allow, honor, and appreciate reality as it is. Do we tend to do that? No...we tend to decide how Life should be to make us feel okay inside. When it isn't that way we resist it. We resist it. We become reactive and disturbed.  

In order to get to Truth we need to remove what is in the way of Truth.  Truth...the Absolute is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.  It is is everywhere. It goes no where. We have simply created a veil of reactivity and disturbance over it.  We have focused our attention away from it and this disturbance and reactivity grows between us in this idea of "individual self " and the "Absolute Self".  We begin to desire certain "conditions" and be aversive to others. We have created modifications. Our minds are "ruffled".  

We are not meant to be "ruffled".  Our purest and most natural state is that of the still lake on which all ripples emerge. We need to unruffle so we can maintain peace-an unruffled state of mind under all conditions. This is Yoga.

If you can control the rising of the mind into ripples, you will experience Yoga, Patanjali,pg 3

So our practice is not about looking out there for the answers to our so called problems. It is all about, as Singer often teaches, looking inward to discover why we have problems in the first place. Why are our states of mind so often ruffled?

They are ruffled because we have become distracted by this "little me" and all its drama. The expansive, Absolute, still lake is distracted by the ripples on its surface.  We, as human beings, are identifying as one tiny ripple on the surface...and we got lost in this false notion that "it is all about me". 

You got distracted by you. Your consciousness got distracted by you....and the fact that you are distracted by you, means you suffer. Singer 

We fail to see that we are not the ripple but the still lake on which the ripple emerged. How can something so magnificent lose its focus in something so tiny and insignificant? 

You are not okay because you are focusing on something in the universe that is not okay. Singer

We have the ability to get beyond the ruffling, the ripples, the mental modifications and misdirected focus to that which is Absolute. Doing so is Yoga.

Patanjali, of course, goes on in his sutras to describe Raja yoga which is simply one Path to take.  This path has eight limbs to it.  They are Yama (abstinence from violence, dishonesty, stealing, immorality, and greed.), Niyama (observance of purity, contentment, acceptance of but not causing pain, study, worship and self-surrender to God), Asana (posture practice as seen in Hatha Yoga), Pranayama (breath control), Pratyahara (withdrawal from the senses), Dharana (concentration), Dhyana (meditation), and Samadhi (contemplation, absorption, superconscious state). 

Yoga is one Path to take but again the word "Yoga" is just a pointer, pointing to something that really cannot be explained or understand until we experience it. 

Regardles of how we get there Yoga is all about becoming okay inside.

Something to think about!

All is well.

Sri Swami Satchidananda (2011) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Intergral Yoga Publications: Yogaville, Virginia

Michael Singer ( August 30, 2025) Becoming Okay Inside. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofz7-QWiDFc&list=PLyOuAoSmZkKoESr2acNWwhznusbBkKXsT&index=1