HISTORY OF YOGA

Yoga is one of the world's oldest branches of spiritual inquiry, and one of the longest standing, most intense experiments on the human spirit. Akin to the Native American spiritual tradition of this century, Yoga teaches guidelines and values to follow, and practices for purification for the body, mind and spirit. The earliest text with just a hint of the guidelines for the yogic tradition are the Vedas, the sacred canon of Hinduism, dating back some 3,000 years to 1500B.C.. The Vedas explore the possibilities of the human spirit and of the energy and powers in the universe, and discuss the purpose and meaning of life. The roots of Yoga evolved from the spiritual and metaphysical disciplines of the Vedas and the Upanishads, a sacred text from near 600B.C..

Yoga, however, rejects the pursuit of metaphysics, and sticks to the practical path of transcending the ego in order to awaken the center self, the pure being of consciousness and awareness. Yoga looks to engage in the spiritual path rather than to speculate about it. It is the exercise of discipline, the practice of purification.

It is said that the great sages spontaneously practiced yoga, evolving out of their relationship and harmony with nature. Using their deepest intuition, intelligence, and experience, they became familiar and instinctual about the energy flowing through all life forms. They developed natural ways to access, build, nurture and direct the energy for greater health and awareness. The oldest and most popularly known book of Yoga is the Bhagavad-Gita, translated to mean Lord's Prayer. It is written in Sanskrit, the sacred language of "oneness," where reference to 'I' and 'You' are satisfied with universal terms expressing 'all' or 'one.' Yoga is defined as balance, centering, or equanimity, samatva. In Yoga, the yogi aspires to transcend the ego into pure self, balance, consciousness, centering its deepest awareness to the point of liberation.

Yoga and its sister science, Ayurveda*, are also associated with the Sankhya tradition which defines categories of existence, and regards the notion of prakrrti (individual constitution) as the tool for self to strive to become more truely itself, until it accesses the divine, pure conscious or the purusha. Yogis hold that the pure self experiences bliss, or moksha--liberation. Liberation comes when the yogi breaks the bonds of old habits and patterns which bind us to the restrictions of the past and the anxiety of the future. By walking in balance in the present, the yogi is preparing him/herself for whatever is to come, knowing all the experience and lessons of the past, and so "seeing" clearly all the eventualities of the future, while accepting that the choices laid out in each moments are opportunities for further purification of one's path and being.

The spiritual tradition of yoga training has been passed down from generation to generation (mostly through the Brahman lineages), from master to disciple, as a well-guarded transmittal. In the last 100 years, yoga has become available to the masses as never before, presented through 100s of centers throughout the world, through classes, workshops, tutelages, videos, books, audio tapes, even TV programs.

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