Sacred Yoga Texts I: The Bhagavad Gita

“Why haven't you published anything in the last year?” a friend recently asked me. The truth is that I’ve used this homebound year as a personal yoga retreat – reading sacred texts, breathing, exercising, and meditating. As a university professor, I believe being a good teacher means being a good learner and a lifetime student. I’m now ready to share some of the insight gained during this reflective year.

Let’s begin a series on sacred yoga texts with the first yoga manual: the Bhagavad Gita. The ancient warrior hero Arjuna faces a battle he doesn’t want to fight. Krishna (an avatar of God) gives him a pep talk /philosophy lecture on being a spiritual yogi badass in an unspiritual world of worldly responsibilities.

Believe it or not, many ancient yogis were manly carnivorous warriors. India was transitioning from a hunting culture to a farming culture, and women only recently migrated into and colonized the front two-thirds of most yoga studios. This was one great leap (or lunge) for womankind and also gave less-flexible dudes in the back row some voluptuous hips as a MANtra focal point for deep, deep concentration. (Do not judge the religious devotional practices of men. Try to be open minded and spiritual like me.)

The Bhagavad Gita expounds on several types of yoga. So, how many classical yoga types are there and in what order should they be approached? This is a common query upon the minds of novices entering a yoga studio. Does the Bhagavad Gita offer an authoritative answer or even a helpful nudge toward one? This little essay will propose a tentative response to both questions.

It is tempting to dismiss a search for the number and order of yoga steps on a path to liberation as the modern western tendency to reduce life’s profoundest truths to trite catchy slogans. Yet, that is not the source of this quest. Numbering and ordering all the rungs on an eastern Jacob’s Ladder are well-established practices of Indian philosophy.

In the 6th century BC, Siddhartha Buddha offered disciples his Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path. In the 2nd century BC, Patañjali offered his four Sutra chapters and Ashtanga eightfold path. Thus, numbering and ordering a guide map of the road to enlightenment constituted a didactic context for the Gita. Even the four and eight numerology is well trod ground to any teacher lacking PowerPoint and marker board but possessing the fingers on one or both hands. (So, our search is ancient if shallow.)

There is plenty of recent literature attempting to list the types of yoga based on the Gita and other texts. Still, few offer a manageable, understandable, and practical set of types. One magazine article claims that in the Gita “the complete science of yoga is revealed … in a systematic step-by-step way” then presents all eighteen Gita chapter headings as independent types of yoga. (Gandhi may or may not have said that he would become a Christian when he met one, but I can say without hesitation that I will practice eighteen types of yoga when I encounter every other living being doing it first.)

Another journal article salutes the Gita and promises you can “find your match among the many types of yoga”. However, the twenty types listed are all Hatha disciplines far removed from the Gita. Even if one considers Hatha to be foundational practice for the Gita’s meditation yoga, as the Hatha Pradipika states, this is suggesting a small part of one Gita yoga constitutes the full spectrum of yoga types.

Likewise, finding your match with a favorite yoga path precludes the idea that the Gita offers yoga types as ordered steps on a unified path or as essential path navigation tools to all be utilized along life’s journey. A trendy preference for eclectic individual pursuit must not be superimposed on the Gita before taking seriously its own message within its ancient context of rigorous guru-to-disciple spirituality.

So, what are the yoga types expounded by the Gita, which must be taken seriously as foundations for the philosophy and practice of yoga? Chapters one to three are mostly dominated by the concepts of Karma yoga. Arjuna’s initial desire to abandon duty is based on aversion to the bad fruits his duty will produce, which is a negative form of attachment to the fruits of action. Krishna’s criticism of Vedic religion is also directed at practitioners who act out of desire for results.

 Arjuna is instructed in this section that he has no right to the fruits of his action and that acting without such attachment constitutes yoga. While urging the intense acts of war, Krishna simultaneously urges withdrawing from the sensory world like a tortoise. He asserts that the Karma yogi can move amongst the sense objects (and slash their throats) without desire or loathing but with absolute tranquility.

This is why yoga arts and martial arts only appear to be distant icebergs at the surface level, while gazing into the deep water reveals that they are joined by a philosophical foundation of doing one’s duty without attachment or aversion. There is a time to kill and a time to heal, and the true yogi and/or warrior is prepared to act as duty dictates. Karma yoga practitioners can be as active in the external world as they are calm in the internal world, because the link of desire for fruits has been broken, so external waves no longer rock the internal boat.

Thus, Karma is the first yoga type detailed in the Gita, and this may be a logical order. Arjuna entered the discussion because of what he perceived as a looming crisis in the physical world. Likewise, many enter a yoga studio perceiving a lack of physical energy or an abundance of junk in the trunk. Knowledge that both junk and trunk are temporal or even illusory is not the first yoga most body-focused westerners aspire to practice. Humans in general are driven to spirituality by suffering, which they perceive to be a result of happenings in the physical world. Right actions and right expectations in that zone are a fine place to begin yoga practice.

Chapters four to six are permeated with Jñana and Dhyana yoga. There is a relationship between the two practices. We are told that some sages recite and study sacred texts, while some practice breathwork, posture, and meditation. Yet, whether a yogi walks the road of acquired wisdom or experienced wisdom, whether following the map of the Upanishads or the Yoga Sutras, the yogi is predominantly learning, rather than serving or worshipping, which define the essence of Karma and Bhakti.

The Gita suggests that sages advance from active yoga to tranquil yoga. So, Jñana and Dhyana can be well practiced on the foundation of Karma, but is there a preferred order in practicing them? The text does hint that true knowledge (understanding the reality of and identifying with the Atman in contrast with the temporal or illusory mind, body, and material world) lights the fire into which pranayama (the foundation of meditation) is then offered.

This study on the Gita has certainly lit my fire to advance in asana, pranayama, and meditation practice. However, asanas and meditation frequently drive yogis to sacred texts in order to provide mantras, methods, and clarity of purpose for further Dhyana. Nothing in this Gita section justifies a rigid ordering of the two practices. However, the positioning as steps two and three is in harmony with the Gita’s layout and argument.

Bhakti then constitutes the ultimate yoga in both logical order and spiritual importance. Of course, one can worship God out of some sense of moral duty and later come to love. One can kiss a partner in hopes of eventually falling in love, but surely the expression of affection for one’s beloved as an outpouring of an adoration that already exists is more natural and a heck of a lot more fun.

Chapters seven to twelve revel in the joy of this Bhakti pinnacle of the yogi’s spiritual ascent. We are told that the disciplined practice of yoga leads a person to the Supreme Divine Being. Then one who understands Krishna’s glory and mystical power engages in unwavering yoga discipline. The wheel of joy has replaced the wheel of suffering. Serve, learn, meditate, worship, rinse in the Ganges, and repeat.

This ordering of yoga types reflects the structure of the Gita and a natural progression of spiritual growth. While the text gives no prohibition (or even caution) against yogis practicing the disciplines in a different order, we see little reason to paddle against the current of an ancient and sacred river flowing to our desired destination. Karma action without attachment prepares one for obtaining the knowledge and insight of Jñana and Dhyana yoga, which leads to Bhakti adoration of God and liberation.

Nevertheless, the Gita constantly defies a step-by-step spiritual path, showing that each yoga inspires and deepens the practice of the others. Still, there is ample support for finding these four yoga types in the Gita, plus esteemed voices in recent yoga tradition confirm this classical presentation.

Swami Vivekananda, who receives the lion’s share of credit for introducing yoga and Vedanta to the West, proclaimed that “The goal is to manifest this Divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy – by one, or more, or all of these – and be free.”

Though his four types align with those above, Vivekananda’s phrase “by one, or more, or all of these” does seem to embrace the western preference for buffet style spirituality. However, Vivekananda prioritized making yoga understandable and palatable to the West, so his statement may be as much wise marketing as philosophical analysis.

Perhaps, the answer to whether the Gita yoga types represent one or four paths can be found outside of the text in the practical realities that arise on actually attempting them. A president of the New York Vedanta Society that Vivekananda founded offers cogent reasoning on why the four yoga types are complementary practices on one path, rather than separate paths to be chosen between. Swami Sarvapriyananda identifies one goal of all yoga practice as becoming the sage of stable wisdom referred to in the Gita. This leads him to three illustrations of why the four yoga types must all be embraced.

First, the yoga disciplines of the seeker become the character of the sage. What we struggle to do and be at the outset of our journey, we naturally do and are in time. Thus, even if each one of the four yoga practices included a one-way ticket to liberation heaven, the sage of stable wisdom does not wish to arrive possessing 25% of a spiritual character. One need not practice all four yoga types, because one need not practice any of them, but the earnest spiritual seeker will desire and strive to excel in all of them.

Second, Swami Sarvapriyananda visualizes spirit as the rider of the mind-heart-body elephant, over which it has some limited control with careful consistent attentiveness. However, the idea that a rider need not be practiced in all forms of elephant control when the path of life circumnavigates tempting banana plantations of desire is folly. Can one attain the ultimate abode by practicing only action, adoration, meditation, or illumination yoga? Maybe, if one is willing to be seated in the damn-fool section of bliss and be eternally lectured by Swami Forrest Gump on the stupid-is-as-stupid-does sutra.

Better to gird up one’s loins with character and stock up one’s tool belt with all the aids Krishna imparts. The road from dukkha to moksha is less taken and more difficult than that from a Lululemon outlet to a yoga studio. Still, the journey of a thousand eons can even begin with one overpriced faddish step.

Third, Swami Sarvapriyananda notes that Karma, Dhyana, Jñana, and Bhakti yoga practiced separately can lead to worldly busyness, reclusive selfishness, intellectualism, and emotionalism. Yet, together they constitute the balanced pursuit of a spiritual life. Who hasn’t met a brilliant philosophy student with all the compassionate heart of a crocodile studying a baby deer or a traumatized bohemian yogi with all the inner tranquility of a rabbit sensing a coyote in every direction? Balance matters. A lot.

Since Krishna has mercifully revealed himself and four types of yoga by which one can approach his abode, perhaps it is not too much to ask that we receive all his gifts with spiritual hunger and humility.

For further study, here are sources I read in researching this essay:

Bryant, Edwin F. The Yoga Sutras of Patañjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary. North Point Press. 2009.

Cook, Jennifer. Find Your Match Among the Many Types of Yoga. Yoga Journal, August 28, 2007.

Goutam, Paul. The Ultimate Science of Yoga. OM Magazine, Issue 6, Spring 2004, pages 12-17.

Nelson, Walter Henry. Buddha: His Life and His Teaching. Penguin Books. 2000.

Swami Sarvapriyananda. The Gita and the Art of Emotional Stability. Academia.edu. https://www.academia.edu/9494775/The_Gita_and_the_Art_of_Emotional_Stability.

Swami Swatmarama. Hatha Yoga Pradipika. Adelphi Press. 2018.

Swami Vivekananda. Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol. I. Advaita Ashrama. 2016.

Zaehner, Robert. C. The Bhagavad Gita: with Commentary Based on the Original Source. Oxford University Press. 1973.