Indian philosophy, the orthodox schools · text c. 400 CE
Yoga
Overview
A school of practice. Physical, mental and spiritual disciplines used to quiet the mind and move toward liberation. Not only the postures.
Yoga, in Patanjali’s school, is a method for stilling the fluctuations of the mind so the seer can be told from the seen. The postures are one limb. They are not the school. The eight limbs run from how you treat other people to the last absorption: restraint, observance, posture, breath, drawing the senses back, concentration, meditation and samadhi.
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The earlier limbs are ethical on purpose. Non-harm, truthfulness and not taking what is not given come before the subtle states. A mind that is still and cruel has not finished the path. The training assumes Samkhya’s picture: there is a consciousness that is not the same thing as the thoughts passing through it.
The promise is not a performance of calm. It is a mind that can stay with one object without being dragged into the next story. When that becomes steady, the school says, the confusion of seer and seen loosens. The practice is repeated. A single sitting is not the claim.
Where it answers
How should we act?
Train body and mind, repeatedly, until the noise quiets.
Key terms
- Chitta-vritti-nirodha
- Patanjali’s definition of yoga: stilling the movements of the mind.
- Eight limbs
- The path from ethical restraints and posture through breath and concentration to absorption.
- Kaivalya
- Isolation: consciousness freed from its entanglement with nature.
- Ishvara
- The Lord: a special self untouched by suffering, on whom one can focus devotion.
Further reading
- Yoga Sutras · Patanjali
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Quest2Reason. “Yoga.” https://quest2reason.com/learn/ideas/yoga. Accessed 13 November 2026.