Eightfold Path of Yoga 

Patanjali (200 BCE), the so-called originator of the eightfold path of yoga, wrote that the goal of yoga is inner peace. We achieve yogic peace when we experience “the cessation of mental propensities,” Patanjali wrote. To achieve this inner goal of spiritual tranquility, he outlined the eightfold path of Asthanga Yoga. This comprehensive system is, according to many Tantric scholars, masters and texts, based on the much older eightfold path of Tantra.

Yoga postures, the most popular form of yoga in the West today, forms one of the steps on this eightfold path of yoga. The eight limbs of Asthanga Yoga includes the following: yama and niyama (ethics), asanas (yoga exercises), pranayama (breathing exercises) prathyahara (sense withdrawal), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (spiritual peace). This system, also termed Raja Yoga, built upon much earlier forms of Tantric yoga as well as the Samkhya philosophy. Samkhya was, in turn, inspired by the prehistoric Shaiva Yoga tradition, today better known as Tantra. In Tantra, the spiritual metaphor used for the goal of the eightfold path of yoga is not “cessation” but “union.” For the Tantric yogi, the goal of life is spiritual union with the Divine through yoga and meditation and worldly union by seeing everything as sacred.