The Definition of Yoga

Yoga is constantly being defined. Nearly everyone in the yoga world seems willing and eager to tell you what yoga means. This is often paired with judgement about all the things yoga is not. The person defining it usually assumes that they are correct and that anyone who doesn’t agree with them is incorrect. So really, what is the definition of yoga? 

There is no singular definition of yoga.

Anyone who tells you otherwise is actually suggesting what yoga means to them, not what yoga means.

Yoga is a vast concept, which has moved across time, place, culture and context. ​As a practice, yoga can be material or transcendent, literal or figurative. It can be religious or secular. It can be a practice to cultivate the body or a practice to destroy it. For the Classical Yogis, yoga is the goal. For the Jains, yoga is a problem. Yoga is exercise for some practitioners today. For others, it is offensive that anyone considers it to be exercise. 

Historians on yoga explore how the meaning of yoga has always been in flux. It has always evolved and been defined then redefined. Foxen and Kuberry write 
“the fact of the matter is that ‘yoga’ is a very basic and generic type of word” and
“yoga practices (the entire spectrum of them) have continuously changed and evolved in
tandem with the culture around them” (Foxen & Kuberry 2021, p. 5). 

Do you think about the definition of yoga? Do you feel strongly that it means a specific thing? We will all certainly have personal opinions on yoga. But we should not mistake our views on what yoga is as the one definition of yoga.

​Anyone who defines yoga is not defining yoga. They are defining what yoga means to them.