Yoga is the rise of consciousness from the lower to the higher degree of reality, by stages.
The universe evolves by stages, and Yoga is a process of the reversal of the diversifying creative activity of the universe. If creation is the coming out of an effect from the cause, Yoga is a movement of the effect towards the cause, a recession of the particular into the universal, in greater and greater degree. The effects have to be understood in order that we may know what their causes are. Also, in this attempt of the effect towards its cause, it should not try to jump to the third or the fourth level, or the ultimate level, at once. In Yoga, there is no double promotion.