What Does It Mean to Be a Yogi?
The word “yogi” is used loosely. Paramahansa Yogananda, who did much to bring yoga to the West, described a yogi as anyone who practises a method aimed at the direct experience of the divine. You do not have to share that language to find the classical map useful.
Four classical paths
- Karma yoga, the path of action: working well without clinging to the result. It comes from the Bhagavad Gita.
- Bhakti yoga, the path of devotion: directing feeling toward something you hold sacred.
- Jnana yoga, the path of knowledge: inquiry into who you are and what is real.
- Raja yoga, the “royal” path of mental discipline and meditation, set out in the Yoga Sutras with its eight limbs.
The physical practice most people mean by yoga today is hatha yoga. In the classical texts it was a preparation for the stillness of raja yoga, not an end in itself.
They are not rivals
Most real practice mixes them. A person of action needs reflection, a thinker needs a body that can sit still, and both need something to care about. Choosing one path as “the right one” tends to produce the polarisation I try to avoid elsewhere.
Where to start
I would start where the Yoga Sutras start, with conduct, keep one body practice and one quiet practice, and find a teacher who can say where their knowledge comes from. I go through this step by step on The Slow Initiation.
A free guide
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