History of "Yoga"

The development of yoga can be traced back to over 5,000 years ago in India, various orders of high Hindu priests developed parallel concepts of yoga. They were ascetics, living a strict and disciplined lifestyle and were vegetarians, wore minimal clothing, and lived literally close to the earth learning directly from nature. The word yoga was first mentioned in the oldest sacred texts, the Rig Veda. The Vedas were a collection of texts contained songs and rituals used by Brahmans, the Vedic priests. They are one of the earliest Hindu literature of hymns consisting mostly of prayers, invocations, and metaphysical speculations of reality. This prototype of Yoga included the elements of concentration, austerities, and regulation of the breath as concerned with the recitation of the hymns, surrender of the ego Yoga was slowly refined and developed by Vedic priests, who documented their practices and beliefs in the Upanishads, a huge work containing over 200 scriptures. The most renowned of these Yogic scriptures is the Bhagavad-Gîtâ, composed around 500 B.C.E. The Upanishads took the idea of ritual sacrifice from the Vedas and internalized it, teaching the sacrifice of the ego through self-knowledge, action (karma yoga) and wisdom (jnana yoga).But the first systematic presentation of yoga was Patanjali's Yoga-Sûtras. Written some time in the second century, this text describes the path of Raja Yoga, often called "classical yoga". Patanjali organized the practice of yoga into an "Eight Fold Path" or “Asthangayoga”containing the steps and stages towards obtaining Samadhi or enlightenment. Patanjali is often considered the father of yoga and his Yoga-Sûtras still strongly influence all styles of modern yoga. A few centuries after Patanjali, yoga masters created a system of practices designed to rejuvenate the body and prolong life. They rejected the teachings of the ancient Vedas and embraced the physical body as the means to achieve enlightenment. They developed Tantra Yoga, with radical techniques to cleanse the body and mind to break the knots that bind us to our physical existence. This exploration of these physical-spiritual connections and body centered practices led to the creation of Hatha Yoga. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, yoga masters began to travel to the west, attracting attention and followers. In the 1920's, Hatha Yoga was strongly promoted in India with the life long work of T. Krishnamacharya . Krishnamacharya traveled through India giving demonstrations of yoga poses and opened the first Hatha Yoga school. Krishnamacharya produced three students that would continue his legacy and increase the popularity of Hatha Yoga: T.K.V. Desikachar, Pattabhi Jois and B.K.S. Iyengar.