I have synthesized the Four Yogas into the Eight Limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Raja Yoga serves as the overarching framework with Karma, Bhakti, Jnana, Hatha, and Japa Yoga incorporated. This creates a practice that incorporates the yogas.

There are many, many different yogas and to incorporate them all is difficult. The difficulty lies in that each system has its own sadhana. Having each yoga as a separate path that is followed is like jumping around from one practice to another without any real structure and depth.

So I have incorporated nearly all of the Yogas into the Eight Limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras grouped as follows:

• Karma Yoga into Yama
• Bhakti and Jnana Yoga into Niyama
• Hatha Yoga into Asana and Pranayama
• Japa Yoga into Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi

What does this mean in practice? It means that understanding Patanjali's Yoga Sutras deeply is the key part of my sadhana as all of the other yogas are incorporated into it.

Secondly, it incorporates all parts of life: work, devotion, knowledge, health, and meditation. I did not think Hatha Yoga would play such a significant role but here we are.

In another way it simplifies the practice quite a bit. There is a set study and practice for each limb.

Instead of having a half-hazard study I have codified my study of the different teachers that I follow. The outcome of this is that I have a strict end to end for my Yoga-Vedanta studies that encompass the different paths. But there are a lot of texts and the teachers I have decided to follow have created a lot of writing. The preliminary study of these texts will take me a minimum of three years with some other texts likely taking me a lifetime to finish.

I will be updating this site with the readings as I go through them organized according to the various limbs of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. So I will not be listing them out here individually until I have read them.

Interestingly, most of the teachers I ascribe to have various paths that they teach or orient around. Karma Yoga/yama is Vivekananda, Bhakti-Jnana Yoga/niyama is Ramakrishna, Chinnamayananda and Daryananada, Hatha Yoga/asana & pranayama is Satyananda and Raja Yoga is Aurobindo. Sivananda Saraswati seems to be a combination of all of these paths.

Beyond this I haven't even started on the Vedantic texts such as the Upanishads, Brahma Sutras, Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vaishista and the commentaries. Those will be included in my study as well, but with the preliminary focus on the writings of the teachers I follow.

Sri Ramakrishna — In Hatha Yoga, one is more concerned with the body. A Hatha yogi puts a bamboo tube in his anus for washing the inner organs of the body. He draws ghee (clarified butter) and milk through his organ of reproduction. He practices exercises to train his tongue. He sits in a fixed posture and sometimes levitates. All these are the actions of prana (the vital air). A magician, while performing magic feats, turned his tongue to touch his palate and immediately his body became stiff. People thought he was dead. He was buried and remained in a grave for many years. After a long time the grave was somehow opened and that man regained outer consciousness. As soon as he was conscious, he cried out, ‘Look at my magic! See my feats!’ (All laugh.) All these are actions of prana.

-Sri Ramakrishna. Kathamrita, Volume 2 Section 11

Swami Sivananda's disciples Swami Satchidananda Saraswati, Satyananda Saraswati, Vishnudevananda Saraswati were all practitioners of Hatha Yoga. They also all have sexual scandals associated with them. The problem with Hatha Yoga seems to be that it is easy to get caught up in the physical and lose the spiritual. Hatha is all about the body and the physical. This I think is why Ramakrishna and Vivekananda warned against Hatha Yoga. Also, it is why I think Chinmayananda also a disciple of Sivananda largely ignored Hatha Yoga and focused on Jnana Yoga and there have not been any scandals associated with him.

One of the faults of Hatha Yoga as I see it while going through my readings is that these teachers tell us to actively ignore the yamas and niyamas. For example, in the Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Swami Muktibodhananda of the Satyananda lineage states, " Raja yoga claims that yama and niyama must be practiced before commencing hatha yoga. It says, control the mind and then purify the body, but in this day and age too many problems can arise if an aspirant comes into direct confrontation with his mind at the beginning of his spiritual quest". This seems to imply that by practicing asanas and pranayama one will eventually acquire the yamas and niyamas without actively practicing them. Even though Verse 16.1 and 16.2 of the Hatha Yoga Pradipika lists out the yamas and niyamas that are to be followed before the asanas chapter even beings.

I do think the sexual scandals around these teachers, the intentional ignorance of the yamas and niyamas is a problem. So my readings and approach to Hatha Yoga is with caution and limited scope. I do think that the core yoga writings of Satyananda such as the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Gheranda Samhita, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are still useful but with the added caution of instilling the yamas and niyamas as a core focus.

Lastly, Swami Vivekananda warned specifically against pranayama so I will largely be ignoring that practice and focusing specifically on asanas. The rise of the Kundalini happens automatically with the practice and does not need to be forced through pranayama and mudras. The natural rise of the Kundalini is a safer approach. Whenever there is a conflict in what the Hatha Yoga lineages say versus what the Ramakrishna and Vivekananda lineages say, I will side with the Ramakrishna and Vivekananda lineages.

So with all these cautions why even practice Hatha Yoga?

The reason is that I do think that a healthy body is important for a healthy mind. Caring for the body through asanas and exercise is important so we can then focus on the higher aims of understanding the Self. A body that is sickly, unhealthy and weak is not conducive to a healthy mind.

Be this One. Mere study is not sufficient. Study gives us information. Scriptures and śāstras only give us a road map. However much you may study the road map, you will never reach the pilgrim centre. Study the map, roll it up and keep it handy by your side, as it may be useful en route during the journey. Now get up from your chair, get into your vehicle and move on along the 'way' the map indicates so clearly.

Chinnamayananda, Practice of Vedanta

I am reaching the end of the start of my Sadhana, having now practiced for 6 months. This does not in any way mean I am close to any sort of mastery, but I define it as the end because I do think I have a framework and a set of teachers that I can follow instead of just jumping from one to another. I think this is the hardest part as there are just so many different teachers and paths to follow. I have read some shastras, the shastras to be read are endless.

At some point, a person has to pick their path and make that path the core focus of their life. Mine is Raja Yoga as it is the path I am passionate about and because it incorporates the other paths within its fold.

The Raja Yoga path, in a sense, is measurable which gets the engineer in me excited. The gist of it is: How many hours of meditation have I done? If I am are keeping accurate count this also tracks the rest of my life. You need a sattvic life to have good meditation. You need a simple life to have good meditation. To be able to sit for a long time without getting distracted is needed for good meditation. Bad meditation has your mind reeling, you just don’t want to be there. You feel dull and everything within you feels far away.

In that regard good meditation requires a purity of the rest of one’s life. This purity work is a lifetime of work.

• Health and Hatha
• Cleanliness: Home, Body, Mind
• Being a good parent
• Being a good businessman
• Volunteering
• Removing tamas and rajas from the mind

All of the above are the prime focuses that I have with the goal of making my sitting meditation better. But the real goal is that sitting meditation and everyday life should not have a difference. All Yoga is meditation.

In that regard the next steps of my progress are plain and simple. It is to setup a process. This process is to go on forever, continuously finding error in myself and fixing those errors using Patanjali’s eight limbs as the framework. I don’t think a massive change all at once will work as it will lead to burnout. Small incremental improvements is the goal.

The primary means to coordinate all of this improvement is through Japa as the bridge. The mind needs to dwell on something at all times so that it isn’t idle or preoccupied with the past or the future. It needs to focus on the present.

यावानर्थ उदपाने सर्वत: सम्प्लुतोदके | तावान्सर्वेषु वेदेषु ब्राह्मणस्य विजानत: || 46||

To an enlightened person who has known the Self, all the Vedas are of as much use as is a reservoir of water in a place where there is a flood.

• Bhagavad Gita 2.46

I am rolling back on my Vedanta practice and focusing on Yoga practice for the time being. Advaita Vedanta is subtle and I don’t have the mental stillness to understand those subtleties. So I am rolling back my focus to be completely around Yoga and disciplining myself around Patanjali's 8 Limbs first. While the Vedanta philosophy is what I ultimately aspire for I need to purify the body before ultimately focusing on the Vedantic philosophy.

This is in part a larger problem I am facing. The goal of Sadhana is liberation. But it seems now I am addicted to the reading of texts instead of the practice. The practice is what is important, the texts are ways to improve the practice. Over time as the mind achieves stillness that is when Vedanta and the pure essence of reality can be learned.

As part of this focus on Yoga practice I am fine tuning my Sadhana framework by focusing on a few key key teachers. I am working my way through their teachings and incorporating them into my practice. But at some point I will run out of the teachings to read and will have to focus on the practice itself.

I think that is the point.

Sadhana is simplifying one’s life. In this regard my life has had way too many moving pieces with my attention pulling me in every which way. But as part of streamlining my life and reducing stress I have decided that there is only one number that matters:

• Number of Meditation Hours per month

Really nothing else matters. How long can you sit, and working backwards from them what lets you sit for that long.

After nearly half a year of practice I have finally settled on a framework for my Yoga practice. This practice is oriented around Patanjali Yoga Sutras, each of the eight limbs incorporating the other Yogas. By creating this end to end framework I have a holistic end to end guide for my own practice. I don’t know if this is correct, but it does seem to create a system that I find helpful.

This month has been setting up this framework and discovering how the other yogas include Karma, Bhakti, Jnana, Kundalini and Hatha overlap within the Patanjali's Raja Yoga framework. Though is is hard to pin any of these down to a single limb, I have found that they can be mapped to the limbs of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. In that regard I am pretty satisfied with the framework I have created.

For the future, my goal is to dive into each of the limbs and master each. I believe that this will take lifetimes, but I am excited to see where it takes me.