Swami Sivananda's approach to yoga was to combine the four main paths - karma yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga and raja yoga along with various sub-yogas such as kirtan and hatha yoga. This is reflected in the motto of the society that he formed, the Divine Life Society. The motto says, "Serve (Karma Yoga), Love (Bhakti Yoga), Meditate (Jnana Yoga), Realise (Raja Yoga)." In his own words, "One-sided development is not commendable. Religion and Yoga must educate and develop the whole man - his heart, intellect and hand."
These paths are usually seen by others as different and separate, suited to different people addressing their individual temperaments or approaches to life. There is consensus that all the paths lead ultimately to the same destination - to union with Brahman or God. Swami Sivananda, however, saw a need for balance in every individual's spiritual development. He maintained that though the seeker would naturally gravitate toward one path, the lessons of each of the paths needed to be integrated by every seeker if true wisdom is to be attained. Thus he did not see them as different paths but as methods to be used in concert for the one destination. He even gave a simple formula for application by way of a song. As if to express his conviction in this winning formula to his disciples during his last days, he wrote “Serve, love, meditate, realise” when asked to write a note.
Famous quotes containing the words yoga and/or synthesis:
“Depend upon it that, rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
—Jean Szarkowski (b. 1925)