Yoga
Explore yoga as a philosophy and practice of attention, discipline, awareness and inner development.
What is yoga?
The word carries the sense of yoking or union, and of discipline. In the older texts it names a family of paths toward a settled, undivided mind — not a single technique, and not primarily a set of postures.
The Gita and yoga
The Bhagavad Gītā gives yoga one of its most quoted definitions: evenness of mind (2.48). It then describes several routes — action, knowledge, devotion, meditation — as different temperaments approaching the same thing.
Patañjali
The Yoga Sūtra, compiled in the early centuries CE, presents yoga as the stilling of the movements of the mind, and sets out the eight-limbed path as the means.
Practice
Practice in these sources is steady, unglamorous and cumulative: conduct, seat, breath, attention. The Gītā adds moderation — in food, sleep, work and rest — as a condition rather than a virtue.
Philosophy
Underneath the practice sits a question: what is it that is aware? Different schools answer differently. The practice is what makes the question first-hand rather than theoretical.
The paths
Karma Yoga
Work done as an offering, with care for the doing and release of the result. Central to Gītā chapters 3 and 5.
Bhagavad Gītā, chapters 3–5
Bhagavad Gītā 2.48
“Established in yoga, perform your actions, letting go of attachment, the same in success and failure. Evenness is what is called yoga.”
Bhagavad Gītā 2.50
“One joined to discernment leaves behind both good and bad deeds here. So devote yourself to yoga; yoga is skill in action.”
Bhakti Yoga
Relationship, offering and love as the route — described in the Gītā as the most approachable path.
Bhagavad Gītā, chapters 9 and 12
Bhagavad Gītā 9.22
“For those who attend on me with undivided mind, constantly engaged, I carry what they lack and keep what they have.”
Jñāna Yoga
Discernment between what changes and what does not, pursued until it is lived rather than held.
Bhagavad Gītā, chapters 2, 7 and 13
Bhagavad Gītā 4.38
“Nothing here purifies like knowledge. One matured in yoga finds it, in time, within themselves.”
Dhyāna Yoga
Gathered attention, cultivated through posture, moderation and steady practice.
Bhagavad Gītā, chapter 6; Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra
Bhagavad Gītā 6.19
“As a lamp in a windless place does not flicker — that is the image given for one of gathered mind, practising the yoga of the self.”
Aṣṭāṅga Yoga
Patañjali's progressive framework of eight limbs, from ethical restraint to absorption.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.29–3.3
Yoga Sūtra 1.1
“Now, the teaching of yoga.”
Yoga Sūtra 1.2
“Yoga is the settling of the movements of the mind.”
Yoga Sūtra 1.12
“That settling comes about through practice and non-attachment.”
Yoga Sūtra 1.14
“Practice becomes firmly grounded when attended to for a long time, without interruption, and with care.”
Yoga Sūtra 2.1
“Discipline, self-study and surrender to what is beyond oneself: this is yoga in action.”
Yoga Sūtra 2.28
“Through practising the limbs of yoga, as impurity is worn away, the light of knowledge grows, up to discernment.”
Yoga Sūtra 2.29
“Restraint, observance, posture, breath, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation and absorption are the eight limbs.”
Patañjali · Yoga Sūtra
Each passage below is given in the original, in transliteration, and in a working English translation — never presented as the only possible reading.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 1.1
अथ योगानुशासनम्॥
atha yogānuśāsanam
“Now, the teaching of yoga.”
The opening line. "Now" marks a beginning that assumes readiness rather than curiosity.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 1.1 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 1.2
योगश्चित्तवृत्तिनिरोधः॥
yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ
“Yoga is the settling of the movements of the mind.”
The definition the whole text rests on: yoga is named by what happens in the mind, not by what happens in the body.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 1.2 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 1.12
abhyāsa-vairāgyābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥ
“That settling comes about through practice and non-attachment.”
Two conditions, held together: steady effort, and not clinging to what the effort produces.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 1.12 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 1.14
sa tu dīrgha-kāla-nairantarya-satkārāsevito dṛḍha-bhūmiḥ
“Practice becomes firmly grounded when attended to for a long time, without interruption, and with care.”
A plain description of what makes practice real: duration, continuity, and respect for what is being done.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 1.14 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 2.1
tapaḥ-svādhyāyeśvara-praṇidhānāni kriyā-yogaḥ
“Discipline, self-study and surrender to what is beyond oneself: this is yoga in action.”
Named kriyā yoga — yoga as something done, before any question of attainment.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.1 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 2.28
yogāṅgānuṣṭhānād aśuddhi-kṣaye jñāna-dīptir ā viveka-khyāteḥ
“Through practising the limbs of yoga, as impurity is worn away, the light of knowledge grows, up to discernment.”
The reason the limbs are given at all: they are a means of clearing, not a ladder of achievement.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.28 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
yoga-sutra · Yoga Sūtra 2.29
यमनियमासनप्राणायामप्रत्याहारधारणाध्यानसमाधयोऽष्टावङ्गानि॥
yama-niyamāsana-prāṇāyāma-pratyāhāra-dhāraṇā-dhyāna-samādhayo 'ṣṭāv aṅgāni
“Restraint, observance, posture, breath, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation and absorption are the eight limbs.”
The single verse from which the eight-limbed path is drawn.
Patañjali, Yoga Sūtra 2.29 (traditional Sanskrit text). English rendering by Frenly Divine — a working translation, not an authoritative one.
Continue exploring
Enter the story
How the Gītā begins — a person who does not know what to do.
All 18 chapters
Browse the conversation chapter by chapter.
Explore Yoga
Practice, philosophy, body, breath and mind.
The Eight Limbs
From conduct to concentration to absorption.
Ask Frenly
Ask about the Gītā, yoga, and the ideas you’re exploring.
Reflect
Keep a private record of what you’re working out.
