18/05/2026
What is yoga?
We don’t mean the methods or techniques it uses, nor the paths that lead to samadhi — the state of deep stillness and meditative absorption.
In the 20th century, one of yoga’s more immediate goals became its health and therapeutic benefits.
The focus shifted toward a healthy, strong body — with its aesthetic aspect placed front and center.
Magazine covers, VHS recordings, TV shows, photography… and now, in the 21st century, yoga portrayed on social media as effortless, graceful, and beautiful — often paired with discipline and regularity, yet still, for the most part, physical.
Even when meditation or other “mental” techniques appear, they often play only a supporting role — while the spotlight remains on the body, its perfect alignment, or the elegance of a vinyasa flow.
Is that wrong? No — there’s nothing wrong with caring for your health.
But sometimes, excessive focus on the body takes us beyond the essence of yoga… perhaps to a place where it stops being yoga at all.
So when does practice remain yoga?
To find the answer, let’s return to the source — the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (2nd century BCE):
✨ atha yogānuśāsanam || 1.1
Now, the teaching of yoga begins.
✨ yogaś citta vṛtti nirodhaḥ || 1.2
Yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.
This is the true essence of yoga.
Stillness in asana is only the doorway to a much deeper practice — the practice of being with yourself.
✨ tadā draṣṭuḥ svarūpe ’vasthānam || 1.3
Then, the seer rests in their own true nature.
Only then do we dwell in our essence — in awareness that reaches far beyond the physical form.
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