What is Yoga?

“The Sanskrit word yoga is derived from the verbal root yuj, meaning literally "to yoke." Traditionally, it is explained as having the dual denotation "union" and "discipline." The term has numerous connotations and is widely used in the Sanskrit language. Its spectrum of meanings ranges from "conjunction" to "occupation" to "equipment."

In the narrow sense of the term, yoga refers to the philosophical system expounded by Patanjali, who probably lived between 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E. However, his school of thought, as epitomized in the Yoga-Sûtra, represents only one phase in the long and intricate evolution of the yogic heritage. As we shall see, it is but the tip of a vast iceberg, the bulk of which is submerged (that is, unknown to most people).

In the broader sense of the term, yoga denotes "spirituality" or "spiritual/unitive discipline" as it has originated and evolved on the Indian subcontinent. Yoga in this sense can be found in India’s three great cultural traditions—Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.”

http://www.yrec.org/art_science.html

“The whole point of yoga, which means "yoke," is harmony with the one source of all being. Meditation has this same focus — inner attunement and union with ultimate reality or God. Brahman, the pure, absolute being or one God behind all and through all in all, is defined (as in Christian mysticism) chiefly be negatives. In other words, Brahman is beyond any possible human descriptions. He is "the God beyond the word God." The many deities in the Hindu pantheon are all in varying degrees manifestations of the aspects of Brahman. Another way of putting it is to say that they symbolize or express the broad range of energies active in nature and the cosmos. Thus, while to westerners Hinduism seems like polytheism (and by inference, therefore, primitive and inferior), Hindus see themselves as truly monotheistic. There is but one Brahman, but there is a multiplicity of ways of approaching Him. . . . Since there are many avatars or incarnations of the Divine in Hindu thought, the orthodox Christian vies of Jesus or the saviours in other faiths makes perfect to a Hindu.”

Tom Harpur, Life after Death, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1991, p.200

 

“Without the practice of yoga, How could knowledge Set the atman (soul) free? asks the Yogatatva Upanishad. Yoga: union with the ultimate. Carl G. Jung the eminent Swiss psychologist, described yoga as 'one of the greatest things the human mind has ever created.'  Yoga sutra consists of two words only: yogash chitta-critti-nirodah, which may be translated: “Yoga is the cessation of agitation of the consciousness.”

The word yoga is derived from the root yuj, which means to unite or to join together. The practice of yoga may lead to the union of the human with the divine - all within the self. The aim of yoga is the transformation of human beings from their natural form to a perfected form. The Yogic practices originated in the primordial depths of India's past. From this early period the inner attitudes and disciplines which were later identified and given orderly expression by Patanjali. 

According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, the classical text on yoga, the purpose of yoga is to lead to a silence of the mind (1.2). This silence is the prerequisite for the mind to be able to accurately reflect objective reality without its own subjective distortions. Yoga does not create this reality, which is above the mind, but only prepares the mind to apprehend it, by assisting in the transformation of the mind – from an ordinary mind full of noise, like a whole army of frenzied and drunken monkeys – to a still mind.”

http://www.atributetohinduism.com/