A sculpture of a Hindu yogi in the Birla Mandir, Delhi

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A yogi (Sanskrit, feminine root: yogini) is a term for a male practitioner of various forms of spiritual practice. In contemporary English yogin is an alternative rendering for the word yogi. ^[1] In Hinduism it refers to an adherent of Yoga. The word is also often used in the Buddhist context to describe Buddhist monks or a householders devoted to meditation. Chatral Rinpoche for example is a famous wandering yogi from Tibet.

The Shiva-Samhita text defines the yogi as someone who knows that the entire cosmos is situated within his own body, and the Yoga-Shikha-Upanishad distinguishes two kinds of yogins: those who pierce through the "sun" (surya) by means of the various yogic techniques and those who access the door of the central conduit (sushumna-nadi) and drink the nectar. According to Ravi Shankar, Yogis can levitate and make their bodies disappear.^[2].

[edit] References

1. ^ Translators Notes: Note 1: Yogin is Sanskrit and yogi is Hindi.
2. ^ The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga, Shambhala Publications, Boston, 2000 p.350

1-2. Feuerstein, Georg. The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga, Shambhala Publications, Boston, 2000 p. 321, 350.

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopædia.

[edit] See also

• Yogini
• List of famous Yogis
• List of yoga schools
• Ngagpa
• Tokden Atrin