Bhagavad-Gita

What is the best way to define yoga?

What is the best way to define yoga?

breathing with the spirit

meditating on karma

meditating on dharma

accepting both good and bad

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• accepting both good and bad

Whate'er his life, in Me he dwells and lives,
Because he knows and worships Me, Who dwell
In all which lives, and cleaves to Me in all.
Arjuna! if a man sees everywhere--
Taught by his own similitude--one Life,
One Essence in the Evil and the Good,
Hold him a Yogi, yea! well-perfected!

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Bhagavad-Gita

The best available translation for the sanskrit word YOGA is UNIFICATION. To realise and relish that there is only one (Advaita). The different paths or variety that leads to this realisation of one-ness is Karma yoga, bhakti yoga, Gnyana Yoga, Raja yoga etc. But all these varieties of yoga all lead to the same destination viz., Annhilation of ego and relalisation that "There is no I" and that "I am all". It is beautifully stated in Ashtavakra geeta that realisation of self gives two types of attitude, both may seem condridictory but both are valid if read correctly

1. Nothing belongs to me.

Here "Me" refers to the indvidual who has assumed that he is a person and separate from the brahman. That he is different from the ever prevading god. So, in this world only change is permanent. As a result, nothing belongs to the human whose life is fleeting in the clock of time. Nothing apart from brahman is permanent

2. Everything belongs to me

Here, once we realise that "I am THAT" that pervades space and time, we realise that we, as one supreme soul exist everywhere and hence we are everything