Yoga, as it is defined by function and purpose, is simply the practice and process of using a proven system of self-discovery to attain the highest state of consciousness that you (and all other human beings) are capable of attaining during the one life that you are manifested into your unique and personal human expression throughout all of time and history.

And this is important to note because your focus on the “one” (from which all emerged, and the one expression that you are born into) should always be at the center of your practice although your current atoms are repurposed from the atoms of decayed “others” from the past, and your body is created using passed on and rearranged DNA that connects you to common human ancestors (and also to all related species from the past, present, and future, to all living things going back to the first unicellular organism, and even back to the very first elements that formed cells and all materials that exist within the whole of creation to begin with as well).

Yoga operates on the premise that everything that has happened up until this point in your (individual historical) expression (if we observe the world from your perspective that is) has led up to this moment in which you exist based on the collective Karma (WHICH SIMPLY–AND NEUTRALLY–MEANS ACTIONS THAT HAVE A CAUSE AND EFFECT IN THE WORLD). Whether you are looking at the Karma of the Big Bang, the Karma of your cultural/historical context, or the Karma of something you did, said, or ate yesterday, Karma is not a judgment, or value, system. Karma is simply a word/process/phenomena that explains the interconnectedness of all things.