The Four Vedanta Yoga Pathways
The four ancient yoga pathways to spiritual union introduced to humanity in the Upanishads and masterfully taught in the Bhagavad Gita are built on the profound recognition, made by yoga masters thousands of years ago, that human beings have four faculties through which they can learn to purify the heart, discipline the mind, restrain the senses, and unite with the Self within: the intellect, love, psychic control, and work. Swami Vivekananda describes the four yogas as such:
“Each soul is potentially divine, and the goal of yoga is to
manifest this Divinity within
by controlling nature, external and internal.
We can do this either by work (Karma yoga),
Or worship (Bhakti yoga), or psychic control (Raja yoga),
or knowledge (Jnana yoga) — by one, or more, or all of these,
and when we do, we shall be free.
Always remember that the bringing forth
of the Divinity within us is the whole of religion.
Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or
books are but secondary details.”
Jnana Yoga
Jnana yoga is the path of intellectual discrimination between the real and the unreal. It is the path to union through knowledge, not the mere knowledge of things, but the direct apprehension of the One Infinite Reality behind all temporal things. The renunciation of the jnani is the renunciation of all illusions of two-ness. The aim of the jnani is to develop the superconscious ability to see the Divine One everywhere, expressing itself through and as everyone and everything.
Jnana is considered the most difficult of the four yoga pathways, for it calls not only for the rejection of all illusions of duality outside ourselves but also for the rejection of every mental or emotional state within us that hides the truth of Oneness from us.
Karma Yoga
Karma yoga is the path of selfless service, the path to union through work offered in the spirit of worship. It is the aim of karma yoga to sacralize each of our actions through the conscious, constant, and loving offering of our work and the fruits of our work to God. When we work in this way, detached from outcome and in the spirit of service, the bonds of ego-attachment fall away, and our identification with the highest within us grows stronger. Acts of selfless service in devotion to the higher purifies our hearts, destroys our selfishness, and spiritualizes our ego. The renunciation of the Karma yogi is the renunciation of all selfishness and attachment in thought or deed.
Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti yoga is the path of love and devotion to a personal God. It is the unceasing adoration of God in any of God’s Divine forms: Heavenly Father, Holy Mother, the Beloved, Christ, Krishna, Shiva, the Lord of Love within, or any embodiment of God that the bhakta can love with all of his or her heart. Through a constant and unbroken flow of adoration directed to God, the bhakta disintegrates all selfishness through the fervor of divine love.
The renunciation of the bhakta is the renunciation of all that is unloving within and all unloving feelings outward into the world. The bhakta sees the whole universe as God’s and therefore offers unswerving love to all of God’s creation. It is through the power of this intense and blissful relationship with God that all of the petty desires of the little ego fade away naturally and without struggle, until nothing is left to experience but the Lord of Love Himself.
Raja yoga
Raja yoga is the path to union through meditation, concentration, and psychic control. It is for the devotee who is contemplative in nature and who enjoys mining the depths of the soul for the supreme treasure within. The renunciation of the Raja yogi is the renunciation all of the mental and emotional states within that hide the glory of the Supreme Soul. Through mastery of Raja yoga comes the complete command of the mind, intellect, and senses, culminating in samadhi, the perfect internal stillness and clarity that reveals the Atman in all of its glory.
The goal of each of these paths is spiritual union, or yoga, through concentration and purification, and the key for all seekers is to find the yoga path or paths that work best for them, based on their unique temperament. That means that if you have an active temperament and absolutely no interest in meditating, you don’t have to. It’s simply not your way. Perhaps Karma yoga or Bhakti yoga or Jnana yoga will better suit you and move you forward in your spiritual practice. And conversely, if you have a contemplative temperament and little interest in a devotional religion, then Bhakti yoga is probably not for you, but the meditative path of Raja yoga might be a much better fit. The point is that according to Vedanta there isn't merely one way to reach the goal. Just follow that paths based on the faculty or faculties that you most love and are most comfortable with, and that will be your yoga, your way during this leg of the journey. If you just continue to consciously reach for the higher and eliminate the lower within you through the yoga pathways that use the faculties you are most comfortable with ‑ love, intellect, work, or psychic control – Vedanta's great promise is that you will succeed.
-Dave DeLuca, from Sacred Jewels of Yoga