Raja Yoga

A book based on lectures and classes Vivekananda gave in New York in 1895 and 1896, and one of the first presentations of yoga for Western readers. It argues that religion should rest not on belief or authority but on direct experience, and that raja yoga is a practical science for gaining that experience by controlling the mind. The first part explains the steps of practice in turn: ethical restraints and observances, posture, control of the breath and vital energy (prāṇa), withdrawal of the senses, concentration, meditation and absorption (samādhi). Vivekananda links these to Sāṃkhya ideas about mind and nature, describes the awakening of kuṇḍalinī, and stresses that the aim is the freedom of the soul, not psychic powers. The second part translates Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras, with his own comments on each aphorism. The book did much to introduce yoga in the West, though some scholars note that it reads Patañjali through Vivekananda's own Vedānta.

It is a clear early account of yoga as a discipline of the mind rather than of physical exercise, and shows how modern Hindu thought first presented itself to Western audiences.