Have you ever wondered what is yoga and how yoga was born, what is the history of yoga?

The word Yoga comes from a Sanskrit “yuji” which means Yoke or Union. Yoga is a physical practice that brings together mind, body and soul.

There are multiples scientific studies published on Yoga. There is evidence that Yoga improves strength, flexibility, balance, and a regular practice can be beneficial to people with heart disease, high blood pressure, pains, including joint and back pain, stress and depression.

The history of Yoga is a fascinating journey into the past. The beginnings of Yoga were developed by the Indus-Sarasvati civilization in Northern India over 5,000 years ago.

The first sign of Yoga is the Pashupati Seal from the Indu Valley which was recognised as the first sign of yoga by some people but some historians considered that it is not because it can be only a person sitting there.

The first teacher of Yoga was Shiva and the first student was Parvati.

The first Seal of Shiva is from 3000 BC.

The word Yoga was first mentioned in the first text of yoga is the Vedas which were a collection of 4 books written between 1500 BC and 500 BC containing songs, mantras and rituals to be used by Brahmans, the Vedic priests. However, the Vedis is older than that, it started 4000 BC but nothing was written before the Vedas books. The Vedas is the foundation of many of the yoga ideas, but it is more regarding divinities and priests.

In India people were divided into casts, people were born in casts and could not change it. The casts dictated what was going to be your life about work and what you were going to do in your whole life. The casts system was still in place when Vedas was written. Not everyone could meditate but only people who were born in that precise cast could meditate.

Yoga slowly refined and developed with the Brahmans and Rishis who documented their practice in the Upanishads which is a book containing 200 scriptures. The Upanishads were written between 600 BC and 100 BC and it was the developing of the Vedas where 4 books were put in other 4 books. However, the Upanishads are more accessible and easier, it translated the Vedas in a simpler way, more understandable. Nevertheless, it was still very poetic.

Yoga changed and developed in relation to changing and adapting to culture changing.

In 500 BC was born Buddha also known as Siddhartha Gotama, was a prince from an aristocratic family. He renounced his lay life as a prince to conduct a spiritual life as a mendicant, meditator, spiritual teacher, and religious leader. He decided his destiny acting against the casts system in force in India in that era because he did not want to do what his cast dictated but he wanted to study and dedicate his life to spirituality.

One of the most renowned of the Yogic scriptures were the Mamaberata and Bhagavad-Gîtâ, composed around 500 B.C.

Mamaberata is a very important text because it teaches Karma yoga which allows everyone to perform spiritual practice even if they came from another cast. Bhagavad-Gîtâ yoga says that whoever performs spiritual practice/yoga is going to be saved. This means you can have a personal God, personal religion and practice.

Between 200 BC and 200 AC Pantagiali wrote the Yoga Sutras which are concise, short and dry sentences, which sum up previous books. This book is taught in most yoga schools by most of the yoga teachers. It is very used in the West while in the East they use more the Bhagavad-Gîtâ. At this point in history, yoga teaches you to let go of your ego and your desire.

At 0 Jesus was born.

Around 300 and 500 AC there has been a cultural shift: the Tantra rise. It is possible to compare Tantra and Vedanta and understand what is the cultural shift and why happened. Vedante has his roots in the Vedic culture of Vedas and Upanishads. The core teaching of Vedanta is having 2 beings:

the Spiritual part which is the pure part, the good one and the Manifested part which is the bad part to renegade. The spiritual wants to get rid of the manifested part. This means to leave everything and go away far from people and cities and to find a place in the middle of nowhere to relieve yourself from attachment to your life. 

These people were doing extreme practice such as extreme fasting sacrificing the physical life for the spiritual side. In this practice, the physical body is forgotten and abandoned. Tantra is the evolution of Vedas. It has its roots in the Agamas and it brings a different philosophy taking the health of the body within the health of the mind. It teaches a dualism where the body and mind need to be fuse together (Shiva and Shakti). 

The idea and philosophy of Tantra are that a person flies with two wings where one wing is the body and the other one is the spiritual part. Tantra recognise this 2 parts because if you do not take care of one of them the other one is not going to survive. They cannot live without each other. Yoga today is the evolution of Tantric.