How to Be a Yogi

A road-map of the Yogic schools. 

 "A yogi (Sanskrit, feminine root: yogini) is a term for a male who practices various forms of the path of Yoga, maintaining a steadfast mind, the process of transcending the lower self. These designations are mostly reserved for advanced or daily practitioners. In contemporary English yogin is an alternative rendering for the word yogi. This word is often used to describe Buddhist monks or any lay person or householder who is devoted to meditation. The Shiva-Samhita text defines the yogi as someone who knows that the entire cosmos is situated within his own body, and the Yoga-Shikha-Upanishad distinguishes two kinds of yogins: those who pierce through the "sun" (surya) by means of the various yogic techniques and those who access the door of the central conduit (sushumna-nadi) and drink the nectar." TRUE religion is extremely practical; it is, indeed, based entirely upon practice, and not upon theory or speculation of any kind, for religion begins only where theory ends. Its object is to mould the character, unfold the divine nature of the soul, and make it possible to live on the spiritual plane, its ideal being the realization of Absolute Truth and the manifestation of Divinity in the actions of the daily life.

 THE Vedanta Philosophy includes the different branches of the Science of Yoga. Four of these have already been treated at length by the Swâmi Vivekananda in his works on "Râja Yoga," "Karma Yoga," "Bhakti Yoga," and "Jnâna Yoga"; but there existed no short and consecutive survey of the science as a whole. It is to meet this need that the present volume has been written. In an introductory chapter are set forth the true province of religion and the full significance of the word "spirituality" as it is understood in India. Next follows a comprehensive definition of the term "Yoga," with short chapters on each of the five paths to which it is applied, and their respective practices.