Yoga is an ancient and spectacularly diverse phenomenon that resists easy definition. Predating archaeological evidence, yoga was most likely born in the ancient lands of India 5000 years ago and was subsequently adopted by Hinduism as well as Buddhism and Jainism. Both its origin in an oral culture and its great many vocabularies make the diverse branches of yoga in all of their richness difficult to comprehensively trace. What is a common theme, however, is yoga’s preoccupation with a state of being or consciousness and the ways consciousness achieves some type of transcendence (Worthington 1982).

Yoga has successfully made powerful inroads into Western culture and is currently practiced by hundreds of thousands of Westerners, though they do not always have a clear understanding of its textured history or its goals. Yoga today is a result of thousands of years of evolution of thought that can be divided into five main periods: Vedic, Pre-Classical, Classical, Post-Classical, and Modern. But it is to yoga’s complex etymology that we first turn.

Etymology

The term “yoga” comes from one of two roots. The first root, ruj, means to “bind together” or to “yoke,” with connotations including “union,” “conjunction of stars,” “grammatical rule,” “magic,” “aggregate,” “sum,” and so on. Some argue that yoga instead comes from yuja, meaning concentration rather than yoking. A practitioner of yoga is called a yogi, and a female practitioner is called a yogini. The term yogini has also been applied to the female partner in ritual sexuality of certain schools of Tantra or to the 64 female deities who were manifestations of the universal creative energy (Shakti). There are also several compound words that end in –yoga in Sanskrit scriptures and represent a more general meaning of the word (Crangle 1994).

The question then arises: What is being “yoked”? In most strands of yoga, what is put together or unified is the conscious subject (jiva-atman) and with the Supreme Self (parama ta man) to the point of reaching the ecstatic condition (Samadhi, meaning “placing or putting together”). Yoga, then, is the way to ecstasy or self-transcendence. How this ecstatic condition is interpreted and how it is employed for its realization differs from school to school (Frauwallner 1973).

Some scholars conceptualize the myriad branches of yoga as forming a many-spoked wheel: the spokes represent the various schools, the rim symbolizes the moral requirements shared by all types of yoga, while the hub stands for the ecstatic experience by virtue of which the practitioner transcends his own consciousness. All “authentic” forms of yoga are ways to a single center, the Transcendental Reality (DeMichelis 2005).

Shamanism As a Yogic Root

Many scholars believe yoga absorbed elements of Stone Age shamanism which dates back at least to 25,000 B.C., and probably earlier. Shamanism is the sacred art of changing one’s awareness to enter extraordinary realms of being and reality. In fact, the word shaman means a seasoned traveler in the spirit realm. Shamans may focus on the steady beat of a drum or ingest psychotropic substances to retrieve information from the other world for the welfare of their communities (Knott 1998). While yoga probably did not grow directly from shamanism, it absorbed some of its elements, such as shamanic poses, transcendence, asceticism, and illumination (Feuerstein 1997). The difference between yoga and shamanism is significant, however, insomuch as yogis aspire to self-liberation rather than other-worldly knowledge. It is likely that yoga emerged when tribal communities served by shamans developed into city states, the result being a shift in consciousness from community toward individual self awareness.

Vedic (Archaic) Yoga

Considered both the foundation head of Hinduism and the oldest religious book in the world, the Vedas (“praise of knowledge”) contain early proto-yogic ideas and practices. Though only vaguely expressed, these yogic roots can be found in the four ancient Vedic texts, namely the Rig Veda (the most well known), Sama Veda, Yajur Veda, and Athana Veda. These four texts are considered to have been seen by seers (rishi) and contain the revealed or “superhuman” knowledge of the archaic Sanskrit-speaking people of India known as the Vedic or, more recently, the great Indus-Saravasti civilization. Named after the two great rivers, the Indus-Saravasti civilization was an advanced community in which the priests had to perform their rites with extreme concentration and exactitude that required rigorous mental training (Worthington 1982). Though the exact techniques are unclear, the Vedic scriptures are considered one of the taproots of yoga through their emphasis on sacrifice, discipline, virtue, and beauty.

Pre-Classical Yoga

Pre-Classical Yoga is a broad historical category around 1500-1000 B.C. that refers to a number of yoga teachings found in various scriptures. It is in this era that yoga began to take its form in the first directly written spiritual method in the scriptures called the Upanishads (“sitting near,” with the meaning of receiving inner teachings). Variously interpreted, the Upanishads explain the transcendental self (atman) and how it relates to the ultimate reality (Brahman). Essentially Vedic, the Upanishads encouraged the seeker of truth to control the mind and emotion and then, just as a mirror reflecting its surrounding, the mind will reflect True Reality. More than the Vedas, the Upanishads include explicit discussions of yoga; for example, the Yoga Tattva Upanishad presents such aspects of yoga as posture, breathing exercises, and mental training. It is here that the doctrine of Karma Yoga, the path of action or ritual, and Jnana Yoga, the path of knowledge or intense study of the scripture, originated (DeMichelis 2005).

Just as the Upanishads furthered the Vedas, a popular and anonymous text, the Bhagavad-Gita (“Lord’s Song”) in the third or fourth century B.C. incorporated the Upanishads. A text exclusively concerned with yoga, the Gitas attempt to unify different types of yoga (such as Bhakti Yoga, Jnana Yoga, and Karma Yoga) in a dialog between a warrior Arjuna and his charioteer Krishna. The dialog both defines and explains different branches of yoga and asserts that people can use yoga to become what they want to be. Specifically, it states that yoga helps a practitioner achieve liberation and oneness (Samadhi) through performing with love and self-sacrifice rather than for a return (Knott 1998). The metaphor of charioteer is fitting as the character yokes and controls the action of the chariot, just as yoga helps to control and unite the individual with the universal.

Classical Yoga

It was Patanjali’s (ca. 600-400 B.C.) Yoga-Sutra (aphorisms of yoga) and its extensive commentary that gave yoga its form as one of the most significant philosophical viewpoints of Hinduism. Consisting of 195 aphorisms or sutras (threads) that describe his Eightfold path of Yoga (also called the Eight Limbs of Classical Yoga), the Classical period of yoga is generally referred to as the yoga-darshana or raja-yoga. For Patanjali, true liberation involves going beyond all of nature’s dimensions to the realization of the transcendental self or spirit. In other words, self-realization is the awakening of yogis to their authentic or essential being which is beyond nature.

In contrast to the nondualist basis of Vedic Yoga, Patanjali’s Yoga-Sutra contains no mention of a union with the transcendental reality as the ultimate goal of the yogi endeavor. In fact, for Patanjali, the separation of the matter from the spirit was necessary to purify the spirit. While Classical yoga acknowledges a type of withdraw from psychological existence that leads to a gradual dismantling of the false sense of identity, his is essentially a yoga of identity rather than unity. His metaphysical dualism was never looked upon favorably within mainstream Hinduism and it tended to cause yogis to focus on mediation while neglecting asanas (postures, literally “seat”). Non-Classical schools that retained their Vedantic (nondualist) foundations led over time to the developments of Post-Classical yoga (DeMichelis 2005).

Post-Classical Yoga

The yoga teachings that emerged in the period after Patanjali that did not adopt his dualistic metaphysic can collectively be called Post-Classical yoga. In contrast to other types of yoga, Post-Classical yoga does not try to liberate a person from reality but encourages attention on the present, to accept it and live in the movement. The Post-Classical era saw an increase in literature and many branches of yoga, such as Tantra Yoga (out of which grew Siddha and HathaYoga, or “body” yoga) while only slightly modifying yoga. What was different, however, was the rejection of Patanjalis’ dualistic views (Feuerstein 1997).

Modern Yoga

Modern yoga is considered to have begun when Swami Vivekandanda appeared at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, a move that marked the beginning of yoga’s evolution in the West. As one of the chief yoga practitioners with a Western education, Vivekananda was pivotal in sharing the wisdom of yoga with an international audience. Handsome, charming, and articulate, he played on America’s fascination with the exotic. His success rested on his unique ability to diffuse religious tensions that materialized as yoga met Christianity. Vivekananda was able to defuse these tension by disassociating the practice of yoga from its popular conception of a practice primarily for Hindu men and instead associating it with health and freedom in general (Douglass 2007).

Carl Jung was one of the first well-known Westerners to really examine the psychology inherent in yogic practices--though Jung’s work, like that of many academics who attempted to create bridges between the West and East, often raised more questions than answers. In addition, the American adaptation of yoga in the 1960s and 1970s--and its association with sex, drugs, and even rock-and-roll--shocked both Americans and some East Indian yoga practitioners (Douglass 2007). The hippies' interest in altered states of consciousness led to yoga’s gradual association with their movement, a relationship that was confirmed when yoga teacher Swami Satchidanada opened “Woodstock” in New York. The Beatles' interest in yoga (particularly George Harrison and his wife’s involvement) was also partly responsible for popularizing it in the West (Lennon 2008).

During the 1970s, the association of yoga with sexuality was seen as part of the attempt to recover “wholeness,” of which yoga was part. Yoga was positioned as a complement to Western forms of psychology, a tool to assist psychological release, and a way to stimulate creativity (Douglass 2007). The image of yoga as a discipline for greater health and vitality gradually led scholars to turn their attention to yoga’s relationship to the body in the 1990s, which has evolved into the current focus on its medical and psychological benefits.  Consequently, yoga’s link with medical benefits solves a whole host of issues that have plagued its reputation in America since the early 1800s.

Yoga is historically an extremely complex and multifaceted term, and its nuances are difficult to understand using the knowledge or methodology of just one discipline. A discipline that places more emphasis on quantitative “rigor” may offer insight into the techniques of yoga--but an approach that emphasizes the philosophical or ethical dimensions of yoga may offer important insights into the human condition. Dialog between approaches can provide an exciting and holistic understanding of how yoga can radically transform identities and lives.

References

Crangle, Edward Fitzpatrick. 1994. The Origin and Development of Early Indian Contemplative Practices. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrossowitz.

DeMichelis, Elizabeth. 2005. A History of Yoga: Patanjali and Western Esotericism. London, England: Continuum International Publication Group.

Douglass, Laura. 2007. “The Yoga Tradition: How Did We Get Here? A History of Yoga in America, 1800-1970.” International Journal of Yoga Therapy. 17: 35-42.

Feuerstein, Georg. 1997. The Shambhala Encyclopedia of Yoga. Boston, MA: Shambhalia Publications, Inc.

Frauwallner, Erich. 1973. History of Indian Philosophy. Patna, India: Motilal Banarsidass.

Knott, Kim. 1998. Hinduism: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Lennon, Cynthia. “The Beatles, the Maharishi, and Me.” TimesOnline.com. February 10, 2008. Accessed: November 11, 2008.