Philosophy

Sadness and turmoil are universal. Learn how practicing deep concentration during tough times can lift the emotional burden.

Neal Goyal was riding on a wave of success after starting his own hedge fund at 24—until his lies caused investors to lose $10 million. Now in prison, he explains how the Purusharthas, or the four aims of life, are helping him make sense of his crime.

Learn how to master your desires and tap into creative forces through Tantric philosophy.

In this sutra, the power or practice Patanjali describes is “samyama on the navel.” This concentrated meditation on your midsection opens the door to a vital understanding of your body’s constituent parts and subtle-energy channels (nadis).

While experiencing the near-death of his wife, Aadil Palkhivala channeled meditation to release ignorance, ego, and attachment.

In part 6 of this kriya yoga series, yoga teacher Laura Riley offers simple practices for surrendering to love—in order to feel everything else.

There’s no denying it: change is scary. In part 5 of this kriya yoga series, yoga teacher Laura Riley shares a 5-step process for using tapas to embrace the inevitable for internal growth.

Becoming a parent involves all kinds of big decisions and questions. Sometimes "I don't know" is the guiding answer.

With this sutra, Patanjali teaches that yoga practice is preventive medicine for our minds—a way to keep future pain and suffering from manifesting.

When it comes to planning a yoga vacation, most of us think retreats in the tropics or taking the ultimate pilgrimage to India. Yet there are so many other destinations that can inspire a deeper understanding this ancient practice. Here, YJ contributors share their experiences in some far-off places that have transformed their practices and their lives.

Meditation Studio co-founder Patricia Karpas shares some of the best wisdom offered on her Untangle podcast.

Your relationship with self requires conscious nurturing. In part 3 of this kriya yoga series, yoga teacher Laura Riley shares how your communication with others can get in the way.

Once you begin to identify your obstacles through mindful yoga practice, you will be able to set better intentions and reset your karmic path.

New year, REAL you. If you’re ready to embrace authenticity this year, self-inquiry is a powerful place to start. Yoga teacher Tracee Stanley shows us how.

Wish you were better able to accept hot and cold, noisy and silent, joy and sorrow? Cyndi Lee shows us how.

Access Consciousness founder Gary Douglas explains how turning the standard self-help formula on its head could actually be a lot more helpful.

Master teacher Rodney Yee shares his interpretation of Yoga Sutra 1.2.

Los Angeles-based teacher Sesa O'Connor talks to YJ about her spiritual upbringing, raising a little yogi solo, and the booming yoga industry.

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Yoga historian Philip Deslippe looks at the insight a few unusual yoga-themed pieces of pop culture can offer into the popular perception of the practice in America over the last century.

Check out YJ Editor's author page.

In this six-part series, our writer introduces the concept of internal activism through kriya yoga as the ultimate yogic tool for weathering personal, political, and natural disasters. First, learn how to become an internal activist.

Sutra 1.12 introduces two essential elements of yogic philosophy: effort and non-attachment. When practiced together, they can serve as a spiritual and practical roadmap for navigating almost every aspect of life with greater equanimity.

In this dharma "talk," Judith Hanson Lasater delves into the paradox of santosha.

Master teacher Amy Ippoliti interprets Sutra 1.3 as a way to meet your thoughts and feelings with self-assurance.

With our community more than doubling in the last decade, yoga is quickly evolving. (Goat yoga gone mainstream? Couldn’t have called it.) This National Yoga Month, we asked respected teachers across the yoga spectrum: what’s happening now and what’s next? Despite wildly different styles, many shared unified perspectives—and predictions.

According to yoga tradition, there are five currents of vital force (prana) that run through us and govern our bodies and minds: the prana vayus. When we understand them and how they can work in harmony with each other, we're able to experience life with more clarity and authenticity. YJ Influencer Lauren Eckstrom explains how to use your yoga practice to embody the vayus, both on and off your mat.

Did you finish yoga teacher training with more questions than you started with? That’s why we’ve recruited seasoned teacher trainer Gina Caputo to speak frankly to some of the most common post-TT questions submitted by YOU. In each of the four posts in this series, she’ll address a new subject and offer both insight and practical tips on how to work skillfully with the challenges you face as a yoga teacher.

Meet your next teacher, Aadil Palkhivala, Purna Yoga™ co-founder and mentor in Yoga Journal's upcoming online Master Class course.

Author Stephen Cope considers the contemplative traditions’ aversion to attachment—and penchant for non-attachment (vairagya in yoga)—and asks is attachment really so bad?

Alexandria Crow discusses the yoga you can and can’t see in an Instagram.

Access health and happiness with ancient yoga practices from around the world that tap into the healing power of nature.

Discover the Enneagram, a personality assessment that can help you see what’s keeping you from realizing your most authentic, highest self. Here’s how to use it, along with your yoga practice, to change course.

The secret to making change stick when things get tough? Harnessing your discomfort and transforming it into personal power through your yoga practice. Here’s how.

In the midst of post-election protests and fear, yoga teacher Daniel Sernicola shares two heartening stories of how people—and the world—really can change and urges yogis to continue doing our part.

Nicki Doane shares 4 ancient codes of conduct from the Yoga Sutras that seem to be out of fashion right now but she thinks should make a comeback.

Leah Perlman's new book Drawn Together is a collection of the most beloved of these illustrations. Here, she shares 12 of her poignant comics.

Judith Hanson Lasater draws on the teachings of Patanjali to explain how yoga can—and should—play a role in improving our relationships.

Judith Hanson Lasater shares inspiration from the classic yogic text, the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, for developing a more mindful relationship with technology.

The four Purusharthas look directly into what moves us, the diverse demands and opportunities of our lives, and remind us that our yoga practice should leave nothing out.

In honor of International Day of Peace, September 21, Brother Priyananda, a Self-Realization Fellowship monk, offers advice for coping with the obstacles to inner harmony.

Purna Yoga founder Aadil Palkhivala reveals how nearly losing his beloved wife taught him about the obstacles to the path of yoga.

Judith Hanson Lasater shares her thoughts on the enduring relevance of the classic text of yoga philosophy, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, for life in the modern world.

There's a lot we can learn from the classic yogic texts about nourishing and honoring ourselves in our everyday lives.

Lasater explores the meaning of the first sutra and offers a home practice to honor its wisdom.

Lasater explains the meaning of ishvara pranidhana to her and its enduring relevance. Join us for her six-week interactive online course on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.

New myths about what yoga and the poses themselves can do for you are popping up all the time. Here, Yoga Physics founder Alexandria Crow debunks a few of her favorites.

Every yoga teacher should learn the core concepts of yoga philosophy before building their own teachings.

Yoga Journal co-founder Judith Hanson Lasater, PhD, and her daughter, Lizzie Lasater, share five reasons why teachers and students alike should know Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra.

Our places of discovery, illumination, and breakthrough are not limited to our temples and our mosques but extend into traffic jams, dirty dishes, and even our trips to the mechanic.

There's so much more to yoga than what happens on the mat. When you need a little push in the right direction or a fresh perspective, the Yoga Sutra is your guidebook living with intention.

Yoga teacher Eric Paskel takes us inside San Quentin as part of the Prison Yoga Project, where he helps inmates create a "prison break" without ever leaving the prison.

Since filtering what we share on social media has become the norm, Bad Yogi Erin Motz offered to take us behind the scenes of her Instagram account. Steal her best tips for getting real.

When it comes to yoga and meditation in the West, Hindu mythology can often be polarizing among practitioners. But it doesn't have to be.

Harness the transformative power of language to design your own personal mantra and makeover your internal dialogue for authentic empowerment.

Find ways to weave yoga philosophy into your asana sequence without alienating or overwhelming your students.

Forget typical self-improvement resolutions—they simply don’t last. What does? Harnessing one of yoga’s profound formulas for setting the right intention and achieving your heart’s desire.

Nicki Doane, co-owner and director of Maya Yoga Studio in Maui, share a teaching from the fourth pada of Patanjali's Yoga Sutra.

Nicki Doane, co-owner and director of Maya Yoga Studio in Maui, shares tips for achieving (and transcending) the superpowers of yoga.

This week YJ LIVE! presenter Nicki Doane shares with us teachings from the Yoga Sutra of Pantanjali on the how of yoga.

These five steps will help you get there.

Yoga is so much more than asana. The sutras show us how to be our true selves and appreciate every moment—even when life gets crazy.

Erin Motz (aka the Bad Yogi) has crashed and burned plenty of times—and she’s proud of every single one of them. Learn what yoga fails taught her about success.

These poses, mudras, and mantras will help you embody and explore yoga’s ethical and moral codes, on and off the mat.

Use asana, mantra, mudra, and meditation to incorporate ahimsa into your yoga practice and bring into focus its unique lessons.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to help bring into focus the unique ways this yama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to help bring into focus the unique ways this yama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to maintain vitality and bring into focus the subtle and not-so-subtle ways the yama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to help bring into focus the subtle and not-so-subtle ways this niyama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to help bring into focus the subtle and not-so-subtle ways this niyama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to help bring into focus the subtle and not-so-subtle ways this niyama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to help bring into focus the subtle and not-so-subtle ways this niyama plays out in your life.

Use asana, mantra, and mudra to foster devotion to a higher power and focus on the ways this niyama plays out in your life.

Try these three books for a careful study 
of the history of modern yoga and its relationship 
to the South Asian traditions of yoga.

This excerpt from Pema Chodron's new book Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better offers wise advice for the times in life in when things don't go the way you wanted them to.

Transform envy into a positive practice for finding—and fulfilling—your greatest potential with these six steps from Sally Kempton.

Advanced asana doesn't translate to advanced yoga. A longtime teacher explores both the relevance of advanced poses in practice and the potential risks of a purely physical pursuit.

To outsiders yoga appears to be all about flexibility, but teacher Alexandria Crow says it’s so much more. (And yes, there is such a thing as too flexible.)

Practice mindful anger management and open the door to better relationships with author Lama Surya Das’s “six Rs of intentional responsiveness.”