A Guide to Popular Names in Yoga – PartIII

oga refers to many different paths of realizing a union with the divine. Hatha yoga, most popular with non-Indian yoga practitioners, is merely one of many approaches. Hatha yoga emphasizes the physical body as the starting point in building a spiritual practice. The names on this list are all forms of yoga practice that may or may not include the practice of physical asanas postures.    

[post-img]Bhakti Yoga
The devotional path of worshipping the divine, performed mainly through puja rituals, chants and invocations of deities.  

Buddhist Yoga
Metaphysical approach based on Buddhist scriptures that prepares practitioner for Buddhist meditation techniques.  

Hatha Yoga
Any practice based on the physical postures of asanas. Almost all yoga classes in the West are hatha yoga classes. Differ from yoga practices that instead emphasize meditation, pranayama and devotion.

[tip-fact]Jnana Yoga
The yoga of knowledge. Identifying oneself with the Ultimate Divine instead of with one’s body or mind. Sometimes described as the path of the philosopher or sage.  

[b-quote]Karma Yoga
The practice of selfless service to community. Most frequently used to describe unpaid volunteer work or offerings of work without attachment to results and for the good of all.  

Raja Yoga
Emphasizes self-control of one’s mind by living according to certain ethical practices (such as ahimsa, non-violence), restraints and observances, meditation and pranayama techniques of regulating the breath as described in the eight-fold path by the scribe Patanjali.  

Tantra Yoga
Ecstatic practices enacted with the belief that being fully engaged with the physical, material world  activates the power of sakti energy. Can be experienced through extreme or altered states including through sex, food, intoxicants, ritual, dance, art, nature and societal taboos.

A Guide to Popular Names in Yoga

• Part 1: The major influential schools of yoga.
• Part 2: More recent hybrid forms developed in North America.
• Part 3: Practices of Yoga other than through the physical Hatha form.