There is the belief that yoga is only Hatha yoga, but yoga is primarily a spiritual discipline and there are many types. Some of the most well-known paths of yoga are Jnana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, and Raja Yoga. These represent the four traditional schools of Yoga.
Let’s start with Janana. What is Jnana yoga? It is the Hindu approach to salvation by the way of knowledge, wisdom, introspection, and contemplation. It involves the exploration of the nature of our being by systematically exploring and setting aside false identities. To obtain knowledge of the true nature followers study the three schools of Hindu philosophy; Vedanta, Sankhya, and Yoga.
Karma Yoga stands for the path to liberation in Hinduism. It is also known as Karma Marga; but, what does Karma marga mean? It is the path of action, service to others, mindfulness, and remembering the levels of our being while fulfilling our actions or karma in the world.
Bhakti Yoga, also called Bhakti marga is one of the paths of yoga that a practitioner can follow on the path to self-realization. It is the path of devotion, emotion, love, compassion, and service to God and others. All actions are done in the context of remembering the Divine.
Finally, Raja Yoga is the path of self-discipline and practice. Raja Yoga is called Ashtanga Yoga because it is organized into eight parts.
What are the parts of Ashtanga? They are Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi. The eight steps emphasize meditation and the search for peace, clarity, self-control, and Realisation.
In any case, there are four different paths because each person is unique with their own special qualities but most importantly they all try to lead to the highest state of self-realization; so the goal of most practitioners must be to align their own likes and desires with the four paths in order to use them wisely and lovely to enhance their life.