The history of Yoga

In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism the word yoga means "spiritual discipline". People often associate yoga with the postures and stances that make up the physical activity of the exercise, but after closer inspection it becomes clear that there are many more aspects of yoga. It is an activity that has been practiced for thousands of years, and it is something that has evolved and changed overtime. Different factions of yoga have developed since its conception.

The origins of yoga are shrouded in the mists of time- for yoga is regarded as a divine science of life, revealed to enlighten sages in meditation. The oldest archaeological evidence of its existence is provided by a number of stone seals showing figures on yogic posters, excavated from the Indus valley and thought to date from around BC. Yoga is first mentioned in the vast collection of scriptures called the Vedas, portions of which date from the least 2500BC, but it is the Upanishads, which form the later part of the Vedas, that known Vedanta. Central to Vedanta is the idea of one absolute reality or consciousness, known as Brahman, that underlies the entire universe.

Around the sixth century BC appeared two massive epic poems- the Ramayana, written by Valmiki, and the Mahabharata, written by Vyasa and containing the Bhagavad Gita, perhaps the best known of all yogic scriptures. In the Gita, God or Brahman, incarnated as Lord Krishna, instructs the warrior Arjuna in yoga- specifically in how to achieve liberation by fulfilling ones duties in lifel. The backbone of Raja Yoga is furnished by Patanjali's yoga sutras, thought to have been written in the third century BC. The classical text on Hatha Yoga is the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, which describes the various asanas and breathing excercises which form the basis of the modern practice of yoga.

"The traditional purpose of Yoga, however, has always been to bring about a profound transformation in the person through the transcendence of the ego," (Feuerstein 3)