In short
The four classical paths of yoga are karma yoga, the yoga of selfless action; bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion; jnana yoga, the yoga of knowledge and self-inquiry; and raja yoga, the yoga of meditation and mental discipline, which includes Patanjali’s eight limbs. Hatha yoga, the physical practice, is traditionally a preparation for raja yoga. The Sivananda tradition teaches all four together as the “yoga of synthesis”, since most people have something of every temperament.
Ask someone what yoga is and they will usually describe a posture. Ask a traditional teacher and you may get a much longer answer — one in which the mat is the smallest part.
Four paths, one destination
The word yoga comes from a root meaning "to join" or "to yoke". In the classical traditions, what is being joined is the individual self and something larger than it. Different traditions name that larger thing differently. They broadly agree that there is more than one way to approach it, because people are not all built the same.
The classical scheme names four paths, each suited to a different temperament: the active person, the emotional person, the intellectual person, and the contemplative one. The Bhagavad Gita, the text most often cited here, discusses them at length.
Karma yoga: the yoga of action
For the active temperament. Karma yoga is doing your work fully and well without being attached to its results — serving without calculating the return.
It sounds modest and is the hardest thing on this page. It means washing up at a retreat as carefully as you would teach a class. It means helping without wanting to be seen helping. In practice it is how most people first discover that the mind's constant bargaining can be put down.
Bhakti yoga: the yoga of devotion
For the emotional temperament. Bhakti yoga turns feeling into practice: love, gratitude and devotion directed towards the divine, in whatever form speaks to the practitioner. Its tools are chanting, prayer, kirtan — call-and-response singing — and ritual.
Many Western students are wary of this path at first and then find it is the one that moves them most. Chanting Om at the start of a class is a small taste of it.
Jnana yoga: the yoga of knowledge
For the intellectual temperament. Jnana yoga is the path of inquiry: study of the scriptures, reflection, and the persistent question "who am I?", pursued until the answer is lived rather than merely understood.
It is the path of Vedanta, and the reason the school is called the School of Yoga and Vedanta Studies. It is also the easiest path to mistake for its opposite. Reading a great deal about the self is not the same as knowing it, and every teacher of this path says so.
Raja yoga: the yoga of meditation
For the contemplative temperament. Raja yoga, the "royal path", is the systematic discipline of the mind. Its classical statement is Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, and its structure is the eight limbs: ethical conduct, personal disciplines, posture, breath control, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation, and absorption.
If you practise meditation daily, this is the path you are on, whether or not you call it that.
Where Hatha yoga fits
The postures, breathing and cleansing practices of Hatha yoga are traditionally understood as a preparation for raja yoga. The classical Hatha texts are explicit: the body is made steady and healthy, and the breath brought under control, so that the mind can become still enough to meditate.
So a Hatha class is not a separate thing from all of this. It is the doorway. That is why a traditional class ends with relaxation and a moment of stillness rather than with the hardest posture. There is more in what is Hatha yoga.
Why practise all four
Swami Sivananda, whose tradition the school's teaching comes from, did not ask students to choose. He taught what he called the yoga of synthesis: all four paths practised together, because nobody is only one temperament and each path corrects the others' blind spots.
Action without knowledge becomes busyness. Knowledge without devotion becomes dry. Devotion without discipline becomes sentiment. Meditation without service can become self-absorption. Practised together, they keep each other honest.
Sivananda summed the whole thing up in six words: serve, love, give, purify, meditate, realise. It is still about the best one-line description of yoga there is.
You do not need to adopt any of this to take a class. But if you have ever finished a practice and sensed there was more to it than stretching, this is what the more is.
Common questions
What are the four paths of yoga?
Karma yoga, the path of selfless action; bhakti yoga, the path of devotion; jnana yoga, the path of knowledge and self-inquiry; and raja yoga, the path of meditation and mental discipline described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras.
Which path of yoga is Hatha yoga?
Hatha yoga is traditionally a preparation for raja yoga. Its postures and breathing make the body steady and the breath controlled so that the mind can settle enough for meditation.
What is the yoga of synthesis?
Swami Sivananda’s approach of practising all four paths together rather than choosing one, on the principle that everyone has something of every temperament and each path balances the others.
Do I have to follow these paths to do yoga classes?
No. You can practise postures and breathing for their own sake. The four paths are there for anyone who finds they want to go further.
Known to his students as Achu, Aksharanand trained in the Sivananda tradition and holds an Advanced Teacher Training Certificate. He has taught Hatha Yoga, pranayama, meditation and Vedanta philosophy in Fort Kochi for over fifteen years, across more than 5,000 group classes and seventy international teacher training batches.
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