Yoga is said to be “karma-su-kaushalam” by Gitacharya Krishna in the Srimad Bhagavad Gita. The meaning is excellence and expertise in the actions undertaken is Yoga. Patanjali helped us appreciate Yoga as “chitta vrutti nirodha”. It means Yoga helps us control the wandering mind and tendencies. Yoga is expected to help us have good swasthya (self-contained holistic health) and take us to higher levels of conscience.
To understand a body of knowledge and move towards adoption and application of the same, we need some sort of practical classification or categorisation. Yoga, too, got that respectful treatment by Patanjali, who divided it into “ashta + anga”, meaning eightfold.
Modern day Yogic trainings jump directly to Dhyana (meditation) in some cases, and a few start with the bodily mov