The Paths of Yoga

The previous lesson recovered what yoga classically means. This one takes up the several yogas the tradition names — and corrects a scheme that has become so standard it is rarely examined.

You will find, in almost every introduction, a tidy fourfold arrangement: karma yoga for the active, jñāna yoga for the intellectual, bhakti yoga for the emotional, rāja yoga for the meditative — four parallel paths, equally valid, suited to four temperaments. Choose the one that fits.

That scheme is not ancient. It owes its familiar form chiefly to nineteenth- and twentieth-century presentations of Hinduism, above all to Vivekananda, who wrote a book on each. It has real virtues: it is clear, it is generous, and it made the tradition legible to audiences who needed a way in.