Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

many different lineages, or names, of yoga systems, modern yogis tend to categorize yoga into four or five major branches. These are sometimes referred to as The Four Yogas. When analyzing just about any approach, or brand, of yoga, one usually finds it is made up of components from the major four branches. I will offer here a simple introduction to the big four and some of the strengths and possible pitfalls of each. It is important to realize that modern interpretations of yoga, and Hatha yoga in particular, are actually syncretic amalgams taken from many ancient and contemporary beliefs and practices. Any definition of yoga is interpretive; the presentation here is limited to the basics of these yoga systems, with a new perspective on them.

Raja, Hatha, and Tantra Yoga
    Raja
means king, and Raja yoga is known as the kingly yoga. This yoga is usually attributed to Patanjali, who first codified this system, although he did not call it Raja but simply a vision of yoga. It was actually Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) who popularized and systemized this approach. Patanjali’s teachings are found in a treatise consisting of four volumes of
sutras
, or brief aphorisms, which go into the analysis and explanation of psychology, mental states, the cause and removal of suffering and delusion, and psychic and magical powers. His two most-quoted sutras are
Yogas chitta vritti nirodaha
and
Yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi
. These aphorisms are translated in various ways, often with subtle or profound differences in meaning. The first one, for example, is often translated as “Yoga is the stilling of mental turbulence” or “Yoga is the control of the mental modifications.” The second sutra is a list of eight practices and might be translated as “Yoga consists of observances, abstinences, posture, control of life force, turning the senses inward, concentration, meditation, and super-consciousness or reintegration.” Followers of Raja yoga usually see these as the eight limbs or steps of yoga and hence this system is also called
Ashtanga
yoga, or eight-limbed yoga. Hatha yoga is often included as part of Raja yoga, because of its second and third limbs, asana and pranayama, but Hatha almost certainly evolved several centuries later. Many practitioners also see Hatha yoga as a separate and complete system.
    Although many modern proponents of Hatha yoga attribute its roots and foundations to Patanjali and to Raja yoga, Hatha’s origins are actually more connected to a later form, Tantra yoga. Tantra differs from traditional yoga, which tends to center around ascetic and renunciative practices and beliefs, in that Tantra seeks spiritual development through the mundane. The Tantric path cultivates awakening in daily life through the feminine, goddess worship, sexuality, and evenlimited intoxication. Modern definitions of yoga, Hatha yoga, and Tantra are actually blended from many ancient and contemporary beliefs and practices.
    Some forms of contemporary yoga and Tantra involve sexual practices and meditations. Sex can be one of the deepest and most profound meditations and influencers of consciousness. It is the meditation of birth and death with the potency of the wholeness of life. To deny sexuality is to deny the creative force of life. One could say a lot about Tantra, and the yoga of love, but modern Tantra can be distilled down to exploring how to discover and strengthen love, relationship, and connection, while riding the waves of creative force that is the dance of sexuality. Some yogic lineages suggest that it is necessary to limit or deny the sexual in order to be near what they call the purity of God. It may be possible to connect with God and Goddess spiritually through such renunciation and denial, but this far more often leads to repression and neurosis than it does to spiritual awakening. Denial, or attempted sublimation, is much more difficult than is riding the wave of all the senses, of sexuality, connection, love, and relationship. Raja yoga puts its emphasis on controlling ourselves while Tantra shows the importance of letting go to life and merging in the bliss of love.
    One of the appealing things about Raja yoga is also its very limitation. It appears to be a scientific, step-by-step path to truth or enlightenment. This makes it especially attractive to the Western mind which seeks order and explanation for everything. It is the yoga of control, and what is more