Philosophy is man’s creative interaction with himself and his environment. What is it that is around me, and what is this me surrounded by things in endless space? What has time and history done to me? Surrounded, smothered, lost, how do I survive if I must? If I must survive, I ought to know how to survive and be myself. The Yoga philosophy is one answer to this overwhelming question.
The original philosophy of Yoga is revealed in seed form first in the Vedas (Yaju. 23, 18; 31, 60 and ch.11; and swami Divyananda Saraswati: Yogavidya in the Vedas 1983).
Then the Yogasutras of Patanjali offer a systematic study of the discipline in respect of both theory and practice. Later teachers and practitioners have worked out their own specialized paths of Yoga. But, without doubt, they seem to have developed one or the other branch of the original system in their own context for their own purpose. For example, some of the modern teachers, who accept the freedom of personal choice as the very basis of Yoga, build their particular system on 1.39 which says: “Follow the way which suits you”. However, for the conscientious student of Yoga, whether as spiritual or as academic discipline, the Yogasutras remain the basic text and philosophy.