YOGA  HISTORY

Yoga has evolved in both India under Hinduism and in Tibet with Buddhism.  Hinduism and Buddhism is not the best for everyone.  Being a good human being is far more important than being a religious believer. The world’s major religions are all directed towards how to achieve lasting happiness. Religion is concerned with salvation, spirituality and is concerned with the dimensions of the human spirit.  All the world’s major religions are focused on helping individuals be good human beings by emphasizing love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility, and so on. They do not live luxuriously but voluntarily accept suffering without consideration to the hardship involved.

 

Hindus believe that Lord Shiva, the god of yoga and the destroyer, came about around 2,500 BC.  Asanas were absent from most of yoga before 1900 in India.  YMCA and gyms started to make yoga part of their workout routines int eh 1900s.  Eugenics movements in the early 1900s focused strongly on building an idea body.  All areas of society including yoga started to adapt to this desire for an ideal body.

 

Krishnamacharya is generally considered the grandfather of modern yoga.  Krishnamacharya opened a yoga Shala in 1933. He studied the yoga sutras at Lake Mansarour in Tibet. He instructed when he went home to India and taught. Krishnamacharya did not desire to practice physical yoga, but the Indian leader, Maharaja, supported Krishnamacharya and demanded him to train the palace guards.  Krishnamacharya eventually wrote books that included postures including Yoga Makaranda and Yoga Sanagaha.  Krishnamacharya did not focus on kirtans and rejected Sat Karmas because they were not in the Yoga Sutras. When Krishnamacharya started teaching physical poses he suggested holding the poses for 3-15 minutes each. Gym equipment was used in the yoga hall.  Kuvalayanda adopted some drill like aspects from Limb gymnastics, and much of yoga has evolved to focus on the limbic gymnastics rather than the deeper prana. References to sutras and gurus often.  Krishnamacharya claimed to have learned from a Himalayan guru Raminohaj Brahmacari who taught him form a 5,000-year-old book called the Yoga Kurunta.  It’s unclear if the Yoga Kurna really existed as every search for it an library has revealed a note suggesting the only copy was eaten by ants. 

 

Yoga in American started with Pierre Bernard, the “Great Omm.”  He was born in 1876 in Leon, Iowa (population 1,300).  Bernard moved to Lincoln Nebraska and met Sylvia Hamait from Calcutta.  Bernard studied and learned from Sylvia, his guru.  After traveling India and learning the basics, he imported a slightly sleazy tantric version of yoga to the USA. He had an orgy room, called Opus Diem, seduced people, and tricked very rich people to give him money.  Bernard had elephants at his place, and he did not spend much time on physical yoga.  Physical yoga was largely introduced into the United States by Nancy Gilgoff and David Williams who imported Ashtanga yoga.

 

Buddhists believe there were three turns of the Dharma wheel.  The first turn of the Dharma wheel yielded the four noble truths: ordinary life is conditioned by suffering, suffering results from causes; the causes of suffering can be extinguished; there is a simple path to extinguish suffer.  The second turn yields the answer that emptiness, kindness, compassion, bodhicitta, mind, and hear awakening can make one happy.  The third turn yielded the answer that we can describe fundamental characteristics of happiness but like space time it’s difficult to spot their location and time at once.  Energy is never lost but just converted to other forms of energy.  We can either have knowledge or have a practice and particles are waves that prove the vision set is incomplete.

There are three original Hindu Gods: Brahma the creator; Vishnu the preserver, and Shiva the destroyer.  Most of the other Gods are avatars of these three Gods.  Brahma is the grandfather, who has 4 heads.  He has too much pride which caused him to lose one head.  Bahama is the architect of Vishnu’s dream.  Billions of worlds have come and gone. This world is but a dream of the three enduring Gods.

 

Vishnu is the Preserver born of the lotus. He who is there, everywhere at all times. Used to be depicted as a serpent floating on primordial oceans.   The world is Vishnu’s dream. Vishnu loves all, and he plays his flute.  Vishnu is linked with Ram, Krishan, Sita, Rada, and Lakshmi.  Krishna is one of Vishnu’s 10 incarnations who does pranks, mischief and miracles. Rama is another one who is the hero of Ramayana and who Hanuman serves.

 

Story of the loyal follower who does everything but has everything versus one who does little but gives all and is a great worshipper.

    

Without peace there is no truth. Truth lives in the stillness.

 

Be patient. We will soon be there.

 

There are hundreds of Hindus Gods, and a full discussion of them lies beyond the scope of this book, but here are a few to give one an idea of if further reading is merited: