The True Essence of Yoga

Ask someone what yoga is today, and they will almost certainly describe a physical practice—stretching, poses, breathwork at most. Every day, millions of people gather at places called “yoga studios” to do exactly this, though these studios are, for all practical purposes, gyms. You might expect, then, that the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali would be dense with instruction on physical postures. Patanjali’s name is inescapable in yoga culture—walk into any studio, and you will hear it eventually, usually attached to some version of the assurance that the school’s lineage is ancient, unbroken, traceable in a straight line back to him.…