How did 'yoga', the ancient exercise of body and soul, spread around the world?

 How did 'yoga', the ancient exercise of body and soul, spread around the world?

Although the world was well aware of the ancient Indian physical and spiritual practice of ‘Yoga’ for a long time, when the United Nations recognized the invaluable services of this ancient Indian tradition in 2014, June 21 began to be celebrated as International Yoga Day and for the first time in 2015, ‘Yoga Day’ was celebrated from New York to Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and New Delhi.

Ten years after this first celebration, we are examining what ‘Yoga’ or ‘Yoga’ is and how it was introduced around the world.

Although the history of Yoga is not clear, it can be said that its traces are clearly found in India before the time of the founder of Buddhism, Mahatma Buddha. Therefore, some of its asanas were used and emphasized in Buddhism to control the body and mind.

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If we define it simply, it can be said that yoga is a mental and physical practice, that is, yoga is a process of promoting physical and mental health, which includes physical postures, breathing techniques and meditation.

The word ‘yoga’ is derived from the Sanskrit word ‘yuj’ which means ‘to unite’, ‘to join’ or ‘to join’. Its aim is to harmonize the body, mind and spirit.

Generally, it is an exercise of the body and spirit in which the body is bent and held in different postures and it also includes controlling breathing and exhalation.

Therefore, we can call it a process of physical and spiritual discipline.

In this, the body is practiced to make it flexible, build strength and establish balance, and for this, the body is kept in different postures.

It has three major parts: one is the physical postures called ‘asana’, the second is the breathing techniques called ‘pranayama’ and the third is meditation called ‘dhyana’.

Through this, a person can improve his mental and physical health, but it is said to require a lot of discipline.

On the website of the Ministry of External Affairs of India, Dr. Ishwar V. Basavaraj has written in praise of it that ‘Yoga is essentially a spiritual discipline based on a very subtle science, which focuses on bringing harmony between the mind and the body. It is an art and science of healthy living.’

Richard King, while praising it in 1999, said that ‘Yoga in its traditional sense is seen throughout South Asia and beyond, which includes many techniques that lead to spiritual and moral purification of the self. Hindu and Buddhist traditions alike place great emphasis on the practice of yoga. According to Hindu belief, their god Shiva or Shiva is the first yogi, or yoga guru, but the credit for introducing this Indian tradition to the world is given to the 19th-century Hindu philosopher Swami Vivekananda, who first mentioned it during his address at the World Religions Conference held in Chicago on September 11, 1893, and then wrote a book titled ‘Raj Yoga’ in 1896, in which he described it as a means of freeing the soul from the body through meditation.

Her philosophy became very popular in the West, but the credit for making it popular in the West goes to three yogis, or yoga gurus.

One of them was Indra Devi, who was born in Russia. She is said to have introduced yoga to America and given it a foothold there.

Her childhood name was Eugenie Peterson. Her mother was Russian and her father was Swedish. It is said that Eugenie's interest in India began at the age of 15 after reading a book by Rabindranath Tagore.

She traveled to India in 1927 and became interested in yoga at a time when yoga was dominated by men. She was one of the first women to be taught yoga by Sri Tirumalai Krishnamacharya at the behest of the Raja and Rani of Mysore.

After the death of her husband, she went to America, where she began teaching yoga. His students included Hollywood stars Greta Garbo and Jennifer Jones.

He also took yoga classes in Shanghai before his death in 2002, which was the first such attempt in the new China.

B.K.S. Enger is also considered to be one of the people who popularized yoga in the West. Enger also studied yoga with Krishnamacharya and his students spread yoga around the world.

He founded an organization called ‘Inger Yoga’ and in 1966 wrote a book called ‘Light on Yoga’, which is considered a seminal work on the subject. Mary Palmer, the mother of yoga instructor Mary Dunn, arranged for Inger to travel to the United States. Dunn later became known for teaching ‘Inger Yoga’ to thousands of students.

In the 1970s, a yoga guru named Bikram Choudhary began teaching yoga, consisting of 26 yoga asanas. He was teaching yoga to Americans in 40-degree heat, and his yoga was once very popular among Americans.

Today, you can find yoga classes outside India, from Iran to the Arab region. With the popularity of social media, so many videos of it have started coming out that it becomes difficult for you to choose which method of exercise is best for you.

Along with this, now people have started telling ‘Yoga Man’ as the cure for all kinds of diseases, saying that if you do such and such an asana, you will get rid of such and such a disease. But instead, it would be better if you contact your doctor about any ailment. Yoga is not only an exercise but has become a business, but its serious followers are also benefiting from its benefits.