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ARTICLE : Hinduism and yoga
Gerald J. La Corte (l23@hopi.dtcc.edu) wrote:
>Greetings all,
>There arose two posts on a different usegroup about Hinduism being a
>requirement for practicioners of yoga. The originator of the post was
>actually commenting (complaining) how yoga in the States is independant of
>Hinduism and commenting about Buddhist yoga. Their statement was
>essentially that all yoga was Hinduism and outside of Hinduism there was
>no yoga.
>Well, my former guru taught was Buddhist and taught yoga. Although he was
>quite exceptional, we had to part company. I went into a monologue
>discussing the three primiry segments of vedic yogas and raja-yoga. I
>further compared them to various religious beliefs and specified where
>yoga and those faiths contrasted.
>I know that the vast majority of yogi have been and always will be Hindu.
>I'd like to know, historically, how closely Hinduism and yoga have been.
>That is, in the past have there been a segment of yogis who were Hindu or
>if yoga existed before Santana Dharma or if they weren't orignally
>affiliated but only became such later in time. Is my question clear? Am
>I babbling to myself?
The fact that the basic text book of yoga is Patanjali's Yoga Sutra and Yoga
is one of the six Darshanas suggests that Yoga is intrinsically linked to
Sanatan Dharma. Also, Yoga is clearly hinted at in the Upanishads. It is,
however, true that Vedanta and almost all heterodox schools of thought
(Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism) have clearly borrowed from the Yoga school and
incorporated yoga in their practice.
Regards
Pradip