“Yoga is not an ancient myth buried in oblivion. It is most valuable inheritance of the present. It is the essential need of today and the culture of tomorrow.” – Swami Satyananda Saraswati
The word 'Yoga' comes from a Sanskrit word 'Yuj' which means ‘to join’. Yoga means "union" or “oneness” i.e. merging of the individual conciousness with the universal conciousness. Yoga is surest and quickest way to accelearate the natural pace of spiritual evolution.
The royal road to liberation consists of four paths, they are bhakti (devotion), karma, jnana and rajyoga.
There are several forms and paths of yoga that includes meditation in Raja Yoga it is for balancing of the mind and body through meditative techniques, geared at realizing one's true nature.
Bhakti Yoga is simply love and devotion, epitomized today in such practices as worship of various deities, finding liberation in love with our deity with japa, meditation, devotional prayer (Bhakti Yoga).
Karma Yoga is essentially acting, or doing our duties in life, without desire or expectation of reward, a sort of constant sacrifice of action to the Supreme. It includes, but is not limited to, dedication to one's chosen profession and its perfection to God and all sorts of community service, since they are inherently done without thought of personal gain, selfless service to others i.e. Karma Yoga.
Jnana Yoga is a process of learning to discriminate between what is real and what is not, what is eternal and what is not eternal. Practices for discrimination of truth and reality (Jnana Yoga), and even meditational forms of exercise and bodily upkeep (Hatha yoga, a part of Raja Yoga).
The path of yoga in which the practice of yoga leads to awakening of the dormant Kundalini force. This awakening leads to the realisation of Brahman (Kundalini yoga);
While each path differs, their fundamental goal is one and the same: "awakening the SELF" the Ultimate Divine Principle, as being the only truth, that the body is temporal, but the soul (Atman) is infinite. There is no joy in the finite, the Infinite alone is joy.