yogi

For other uses, see Yogi (disambiguation)

A sculpture of a Hindu yogi in the Birla Mandir, Delhi

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A yogi (also yogin; Sanskrit yogin-, nominative yogī; feminine: yogini) is a term for one who practices yoga. These designations are mostly reserved for advanced practitioners.

The word yoga itself, from the Sanskrit root yuj "to yoke", is generally translated as "union" or "integration", and may be understood as union with the Divine, or as "exertion, endeavor, concentration" in the sense of meditation.

In the Fourth Way teaching of Gurdjieff the word yogi is used to denote the specifically mental path of development, compared with the word fakir (which Gurdjieff used for a path of physical development) and monk (which he used for the path of emotional development).

In contemporary English yogin is an alternative rendering for the word yogi, a human being who is committed to the practise of yoga, usually in the more authentic sense of one who is bound by a code of moral conduct and restraint (including celibacy) with a view to the realization of moksha (liberation). Both words tend to conjure up the image of a semi-naked Indian ascetic with long hair but throughout the East, the words are often used to describe Buddhist monks or any lay person who is devoted to meditation. Yogins or Yogis in that sense are not necessarily fully enlightened as the following definition from the Nuttall encyclopedia suggests.

"Among the Hindus, a Yogan is one who has achieved his yoga, over whom nothing perishable has any longer power, for whom the laws of nature no longer exist, who is emancipated from this life, so that death even will add nothing to his bliss, it being his final deliverance or Nirvana, as the Buddhists would say."

See also

• Yogini
• List of yoga schools
• List of famous Yogis

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.

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