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In this period, the teachings were transmitted from master to student, using both oral and written traditions. These are the teachings found in the Bhagavad Gita,3 Upanishads,4 and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras5 and Hatha Yoga texts. Even in ancient times, many types of yoga were taught, although the four main pillars were Karma Yoga (path of right action), Bhakti Yoga (path of devotion), Jnana Yoga (path of knowledge), and Raja Yoga (royal path to liberation). Feuerstein6 has described 40 types of yoga ranging from Abhava Yoga (the unitive discipline of non-being) to Yantra Yoga (the unitive discipline of focusing the mind on the geometric representations of the cosmos). Of these, the main ones that have survived into the modern age are the Ashtanga Yoga teachings of Patanjali and the Hatha Yoga teachings of the natha yogis.7

In this period, the spiritual teachings were gleaned from many sources, often only through the written word and with or without the guidance of a living lineage of masters (guruparampara). During this time, yoga and its teachings moved from the East to the West, a phenomenon that is often attributed to the arrival of Swami Vivekananda in the US in 1893. Since then, various traditions, such as Tirumalai Krishnamacharya (B.K.S. Iyengar, T.K.V. Desikachar, and Pattabhi Jois), Swami Sivananda Saraswati (Satyananda, Vishnudevananda, Satchitananda), the Himalayan tradition (Swami Rama), the Self Realization Fellowship (Swami Yogananda), and the Rishiculture (Swami Gitananda) have spread worldwide.