Yoga, understood as a path of self‑discipline oriented toward spiritual liberation, rests on a rich body of spiritual and philosophical teachings rather than on physical practice alone. Classical formulations describe its ultimate aim as liberation from suffering and from the cycle of birth and death, a state sometimes characterized as realizing pure consciousness and becoming free from entanglement with material nature. This liberation is closely linked to discerning the true nature of the Self, often described as a deeper reality distinct from body and mind. Suffering is traced to ignorance of this deeper Self and to confusion between consciousness and the changing phenomena of experience.

To guide practitioners toward this realization, the tradition sets out an integrated path, frequently summarized as the eight limbs of yoga. This path begins with ethical disciplines: restraints that govern conduct toward others and observances that shape one’s inner life, including purity, contentment, austerity, self‑study, and devotion to the Absolute. These are not merely moral rules but practical means to purify the mind and prepare it for more subtle practices. Subsequent limbs—posture, breath regulation, withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation, and finally absorption—form a graded discipline through which the mind is gradually stilled and made capable of direct insight into its own source.

A central strand of yogic teaching analyzes the causes of human suffering in terms of fundamental afflictions. Ignorance, ego‑identification, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life are described as root tendencies that bind consciousness to repetitive patterns of pain. Actions shaped by these tendencies leave impressions in the mind that condition future experience, often expressed in terms of karma and the accumulation of subtle traces. Yogic practice is said to purify these impressions and attenuate the afflictions, thereby loosening the hold of habitual reactions and opening the possibility of genuine freedom.

Within the broader Indian context, yoga is also presented as a family of complementary paths, all oriented toward the same liberating insight. The path of disciplined meditation, often called the royal path, emphasizes the systematic training of attention described above. The path of knowledge emphasizes discriminating between what is enduring and what is transient, while the path of devotion centers on surrender to the Divine, and the path of selfless action focuses on acting without attachment to results. Across these approaches, yoga consistently emerges as a comprehensive spiritual discipline aimed at ethical refinement, inner clarity, and the realization of a freedom that is already implicit in the deepest nature of consciousness.