What is the difference between a yogi and a swami

Living Wisdom K — 12 Schools. Check our help guide for more info. As Yogananda explains in Autobiography of a Yogi : The Bhagavad Gita , however, points out that the methods of yoga are all-embracive. Order online The Path of Kriya Yoga A modern tool for helping people to become true inner renunciates.

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Our Spiritual Directors. If he wants to teach his expertise to others then he becomes guru. For example, B. Iyengar mastered Hata yoga practice. So he is a Hata yogi. Latter he decided to teach the yoga postures. So he became a Guru. A person who voluntarily works for the sake of every being including self, in a way of spiritual and social development is called as Swami.

He does not consider any differentiation in the social life such as caste religion etc. A swami can become a guru if he gains knowledge in a particular subject and is interested to preach. But he can become a yogi only when he meets the characteristics of yogi. Swami Vivekananda, and Paramahansa Yogananda fulfill all the three categories. They taught the public on many issues, they are masters in yoga and both were initiated into swami hood and gave selfless service to the society.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 24th, at am and is filed under Philosophy. These terms come from a tradition which is thousands of years old, and will add some depth to our understanding of these characters.

For our purposes, a yogi is someone who practices yoga, with yogini being the term for a female practitioner. Some texts classify yogis at different levels, for example you may be a beginner, intermediate, or advanced practitioner — with advanced usually referring to someone who has reached enlightenment.

In the West this term is often used to refer to someone who knows a lot about something. As is often the case with Sanskrit words, there are a number of levels of meaning to the word:. The syllable gu means shadows, the syllable ru, he who disperses them, because of the power to disperse darkness, the guru is thus named. For our purposes, the simplest explanation is that guru means teacher.

But it is helpful to understand that in the yoga tradition it is very auspicious to be called a guru, and the word is not used lightly as we sometimes do in the West. The swami is initiated into monastic vows or a particular lineage, where they drop their worldly pursuits to work towards their realisation, and to help others on that path.

They are not anti-world in any way, as they live to serve others, but rather it is a case of having set their priorities in a certain way. For the purposes of our series on yogis, it is a title of respect or veneration, which usually means holy.

In yoga circles, people are often concerned with the lineage of their teachers or particular yoga style.