Despite the diversity of yoga practices and schools, yogis share a fundamental yearning for balance. Traditionally, this balance between body and mind was achieved through meditation.
The word “yoga” translates to yoke, and originally it referred to the rigging between a horse and its chariot. Around 300 BCE, the meaning and foundation started to take shape as well.
Origins
The roots of yoga are as old as Indian philosophy itself. Sculptures of figures in what look like yoga postures have been found on the remains of the Indus Valley civilization that dates back to about 3000BCE. The rishis (mystic seers) of this civilization shared their wisdom with the next generations through oral tradition, and eventually documented it in the Rig Veda and the Upanishads, a series of Hindu philosophical-religious sacred scriptures.
During this period, two major beliefs emerged: Samsara, the eternal cycle of birth, disease, old age and death, and Karma, the belief that your actions have consequences that can be experienced in this lifetime or in future ones. These beliefs remain important to yoga practice today.
The modern form of yoga began to evolve in the 19th century when T. Krishnamacharya taught hatha yoga to upper class Indian young men. But the physical aspects of yoga were largely ignored until the late 19th century when Swami Vivekananda sparked interest in the West by demonstrating yoga at the 1893 Chicago World Fair.
Meaning
The word yoga refers to a whole system of strategies for living with balance and attaining health. It also reflects the yogic goal of liberation from all types of suffering that prompts a state of freedom alluded to as Mukti, Nirvana or Moksha.
The first recorded use of the word yoga was in the Rig Veda, which contains chants and rituals for Brahmans, the Vedic priests. The practice was slowly refined and enhanced by the Rishis, who documented their practices and beliefs in the Upanishads, a collection of huge works that includes the Bhagavad-Gita, which dates back to 500 B.C.
In the 1920s, as India was swept up in unprecedented fervor for physical culture that seemed to be tied to national independence from Britain, a variety of exercise systems emerged that melded asanas with European naturopathy and gymnastics.
Purpose
In the modern world, yoga is often viewed as a set of physical postures that tone muscles and increase flexibility. While these benefits are important, this view of yoga is a limited one that can cause people to miss out on the deeper practice.
Historically, yogis have aimed to attain balance in the mind and body as preparation for meditation. This goal was expressed in the hatha yoga tradition through a sequence of poses designed to prepare the nervous system for stillness.
Shiva is credited with passing on his significant knowledge of yoga to the Saptarishis, who took it to different parts of the world. These sages eventually developed and refined this practice into what is now known as yoga. Yoga is a spiritual discipline with a core belief in the unity of all things, a state that yogis call moksha or liberation.
Techniques
In yoga, there are many different techniques. But the overall aim is to balance the body and mind, and achieve freedom from life’s many stresses. The yogi’s search for liberation expresses a yearning that is fundamental to all human beings.
The beginnings of yoga developed with the Indus-Sarasvati civilization in Northern India over 5,000 years ago. It was first mentioned in the oldest sacred texts, the Rig Veda. The Brahmans and Rishis (mystic diviners) gradually refined and enhanced yoga. They archived their practices and convictions in the Upanishads, an immense work containing more than 200 scriptures.
During the early decades of the 20th century, many teachers like nationalist physical culture reformist Manick Rao blended European gymnastics and weight-resistance exercises with revived Indian techniques for strength training. Yoga’s fervor for physical culture was linked to the struggle for independence from the British Raj.
Benefits
Yoga offers many physical and psychological benefits, including strength, flexibility, calmness and self-awareness. It can also help manage pain and stress. Yoga can be beneficial for people of all ages and abilities. It can help improve breathing, digestion, heart health and mental clarity. It can also improve posture and balance.
Yoga is a system of physical and mental disciplines that was developed over thousands of years by passing teachings from one teacher to the next. Its earliest written record is the Sutras of Patanjali, a set of aphorisms that describe a nontheistic integrative form of yoga, with eight components: discipline and restraint (Yama and Niyama), controlled postures (Asana), breath awareness (Pranayama), detachment (Dharana and Dhyana), concentration (Samadhi), and meditation.
Krishnamacharya’s students, such as BKS Iyengar and Sri Pattabhi Jois, brought hatha yoga to the West in the 1940s.