The word yoga means literally means "union" or "to merge". More than a set of physical postures or exercises, Sadhguru defines yoga as a science to determine the nature of who you are and what you want to be.

Sadhguru explains that yoga means to liberate yourself from that information which determines who you are right now. If you can distance yourself from this information, then you're moving into yoga.

Full Transcript:

So even in your mind, your thoughts, your emotions, your compulsions as to what you like, what you don’t like, whom you love, whom you don’t love, this is all by memory, isn’t it? It’s already past. Yesterday you loved somebody, with that memory you’re living today. Yesterday you disliked somebody, with that memory you’re living today. So you’re trying to live that which is over. If you try to live that which is over, that which ‘is’ will bypass you.

So yoga means to liberate yourself from that information which determines who I am right now. That information which determines the color of my skin, that information which determines the shape of my body, that information should not determine how I think, how I feel, how I experience my life, but unfortunately it is. So if you become like this, that that information does not determine how you are right now, then you are moving into yoga. So daily working, daily morning sadhana is just this to slowly, gradually, to create that distance from that information. You don’t have to lose it. People say, ‘I want to forget.’ If you forget you will once again do the same idiotic things all over again. Never ever forget. The more unpleasant your life has been, the more you should never forget. If you forget you will do the same stupid things all over again. This is not about forgetfulness, but being able to carry. See suppose today you have memory sticks, if it’s all the time plugged in and all of it playing, you’ll go crazy. You can carry it in your pocket, no problem. When you want you stick it in your computer, otherwise you put it in your pocket, this is good, no problem. Memory is still there but not compulsively working through you. When you want, consciously you can activate it; otherwise it lies there.

So if this becomes like this, if you want you can activate all of it; otherwise you can keep it aside. Then once that freedom comes, memory is not a problem. But right now memory is a problem because it’s playing up all the time. Yesterday’s love, yesterday’s dislike, everything is determined who you are today. It will not allow you to experience what is today, it will not allow you any possibility of life, it will just keep on… you’re like a broken record, just going on the same thing. I dislike this person, I dislike this person, I dislike this person. Only yesterday you disliked him; today it’s not necessary to dislike him. Yesterday he was doing something, we disliked him. There is no need to dislike him today, but the memory is playing up and saying, ‘I dislike him, I dislike him.’ Whether you like him or dislike him, both ways it is an old record playing, which will not allow you any perception. Unless you begin to perceive life in larger and larger doses, there is really no experience of life, just mind playing over and over, same record.

So yoga means breaking this cycle and nature will not release you from that just like that; it needs a certain amount of work. If you want to be just like that released, then you have to release yourself from the body itself. Staying in the body, which is the way it is only because of its memory and not being a part of that memory. It is the foundations of information that we carry which has constructed this body the way it is – to live in it and not to be of it will not come easy. I'm not saying it's difficult, but it needs to be worked at. The sadhana is just about this. However simple the sadhana is, every day if it is worked at, slowly one can see a certain level of freedom happening within you step-by-step; maybe inch-by-inch, maybe micro-millimeter by micro-millimeter but nobody can say it is not releasing you. It will slowly release you. If you want to go rapidly, a lot more to do. You don’t mind going slowly, something to do.

So tomorrow morning sadhana