Yoga as it was

Today, various things are projected as Yoga. For majority of people, Yoga stands for various body postures and breathing exercises. For some, it is a technique to awaken the dormant power Kundalini within one’s body to attain mystic experiences or powers.

Neither of these were Yoga originally. There does not seem to be any evidence that suggests the current form of Yoga to be the original Yoga talked about by Bhagavadgeetha, Buddhists or even Patanjali.

The form of Yoga that is propagated today has mostly Hatayoga - the 12th-15th century A.D. practices of Nath mystics – as the basis. These practices got a formal structure only in 15th century A.D.


But almost every modern Guru wants to claim either Patanjali or Bhagavadgeetha as the source, probably to impart authenticity to the practices they propagate in the name of Yoga.

But if one looks deeply into the form of Yoga discussed either in the Upanishads, Bhagavadgeetha, early Buddhist texts or Patajali’s Yoga Sutra, one finds  more or less similar practice which is markedly different from what is propagated today.

Bhagavadgeetha is belived to be 5000 years old. Early Buddhist texts (Tipitakas) are around 2500 years old, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra is around 2000 years old. As compared to these dates, the Hata Yoga practices that are in vogue today are quite modern, some of them hardly a century old! So it is the antiquity that probably prompted modern Yoga teachers to quote Bhagavadgeetha or Patanjali as the source.

Before coming to conclusions, let us closely look at the details of Yoga talked about by Bhagavadgeetha, The one talked about by early Buddhists is discussed in my book “Buddha’s Soul”, and the one talked about by Patanjali is discussed in either “Psychology behind Yoga” or “How and Why of Yoga and Meditation”.

I also have a book “Hata Yoga – Myths Shattered” where I try to show how the Yoga of Patanjali and what is propagated today are quite different.

So let us start with the Yoga of Bhagavadgeetha in the next post.
                         
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Bhagavad Geetha, is one of the most quoted and widely translated of the ancient Indian scriptures, believed to have been composed by Vyasa as part of the great Indian Epic Mahabharata, 5000 years ago.