4 yogas of life

In Indian traditions they focus on 4 main ways of gaining spiritual awareness. Yoga means union, to yoke or to join together. A yoke doesn't just join together though, it also helps to control. In yoga the main focus is controlling the mind by understanding the mind. Understanding the mind and gaining some mastery over it allows for the union to take place. Union with the divine essence of all that exists. This divine essence is your true identity, although we confuse ourselves with the mind, and the ego thought begins.

The 4 main types of yoga are bhakti, karma, jnana, and raja or kriya. The English translation is devotion, action, knowledge, and meditation. The Bhagavad Gita is a beautiful story that gives a simple way of putting these types of yoga into practice. I will simplify it further for this post. The purpose and goal of this is to gain some control of the mind so you see the unity of yourself and the divine.

The path is like this- Bhakti or devotion is complete trust and love in the intelligent spirit that is the source of all. This formless spirit which pervades all things and animates all things is beyond the mind's ability to grasp so it's natural to put a form on it. However you see the divine is ok and however anyone else sees the divine is ok. Just know this divine is there for you always, no matter what, you are forgiven, loved, protected, and accepted by the true spirit of life. Keep this image in your heart and talk to it, give your complete trust to it, and listen to it. This is bhakti.

Karma yoga or action is this- Devote all your actions to your God and accept every result as God's blessing. Do not underestimate the power in bhakti and karma together, they will change you from the inside out without even realizing it.

Raja yoga is essentially meditation which can be as simple as a prayer of gratitude followed by silence, feel the energy flowing through you, see how flaky and feeble the mind really is. Just listen to your mind from an outside perspective and notice how it- just thinks, like breathing, you can say it's you thinking or breathing but it goes on without your will. With this understanding it's easy to not be troubled by thoughts and emotions, they just happen and YOU simply watch it.

Over a short time if these yogas are practiced daily you will gain jnana or spiritual knowledge. This knowledge lightens the burdens of everyday life and makes you a stronger, wiser, better person. The journey is for life and the knowledge grows deeper and deeper. Life begins to look like a blessing and not a burden. You lose opinions about people, places, and things. You begin to accept life on life's terms. All this is done without believing in anything or feeling unworthy of God. God becomes part of your everyday experience, a welcomed guest. See that this divine essence is in all creatures. The essence that gives creatures there own essential nature. Even the worst human beings have this, they are only lost in the ego mind of separation. This creates perceptions of fear, greed, anger- in the mind and they respond accordingly to that perception of life. Rising above the mind creates a clarity within, acceptance within, and gratitude within. This the way to a beautiful life. Blessings.