योग

In Sanskrit, yoga (योग) derives from the root yuj, meaning 'to yoke' or 'to unite'—the same Proto-Indo-European root that gives English 'yoke' and 'junction.' In Hindu philosophy, yoga described the discipline of uniting the individual self (atman) with the universal self (Brahman)—a path to spiritual liberation through meditation, ethical conduct, and physical practice.

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, composed around 400 CE, codified yoga into eight limbs—of which āsana (physical postures) was just one, and not the most important. Meditation, breath control, moral discipline, and withdrawal from the senses were all considered more essential than physical poses. The body was a vehicle, not the destination.

Yoga entered English awareness through British colonialism in India and through the writings of Swami Vivekananda, who lectured in the West in the 1890s. But the modern yoga boom—yoga studios, yoga mats, yoga pants—began in the 1960s-70s counterculture and accelerated into a global fitness industry.

The transformation is dramatic: a comprehensive system for spiritual liberation was reduced, in its Western form, primarily to physical exercise. The Sanskrit word for 'union with the divine' now describes a workout class. The eight limbs became one, and the one limb became the whole practice.