Sivananda yoga teaches 4 paths of yoga: karma, bhakti, raja and jnana yoga, and requests the student to practise all four and eventually to pick one as their main focus. Sivananda Yoga teachers are all graduates of the Sivananda Yoga Teacher Training Course. The Sivananda training system aims to teach an authentically Vedic system of yoga and believes that retaining the vitality of the body is a byproduct of the discipline and not the goal. The system philosophies are summarized in 5 principles: A session of training typically starts with every practitioner resting in "Savasana", and begins with Pranayama (breathing exercises) Kapalabhati
Bhagavad Gita that "when one sees the entire universe as pervaded by the single Universal Spirit [Krishna], one contemplates, marvels, and falls in love with its amazing glory. [...] Having experienced that Truth oneself, all doubts are dispelled. This is how the flower of devotion evolves into the fruit of knowledge." The "Gita" teaches several spiritual paths – jnana, bhakti and karma – to the divine. However, states Fowler, it "does not raise any of these to a status that excludes the others". The theme that unites these paths in the "Gita" is "inner renunciation" where one is unattached to personal rewards