yoga

Etymology

The Sanskrit noun योग yoga is derived from the root yuj (युज्) "to attach, join, harness, yoke". According to Jones and Ryan, "The word yoga is derived from the root yuj, "to yoke", probably because the early practice concentrated on restraining or "yoking in" the senses. Later the name was also seen as a metaphor for "linking" or "yoking to" the divine."

Buswell and Lopez translate "yoga" as "'bond', 'restraint', and by extension 'spiritual discipline'." Flood refers to restraining the mind as yoking the mind.

Yoga is a cognate of the English word "yoke," since both are derived from the same Indo-European root. According to Mikel Burley, the first use of the root of the word "yoga" is in hymn 5.81.1 of the Rigveda, a dedication to the rising Sun-god, where it has been interpreted as "yoke" or "control".

Pāṇini (4th c. BCE) wrote that the term yoga can be derived from either of two roots: yujir yoga (to yoke) or yuj samādhau ("to concentrate"). In the context of the Yoga Sutras, the root yuj samādhau (to concentrate) is considered the correct etymology by traditional commentators. In accordance with Pāṇini, Vyasa (who wrote the first commentary on the Yoga Sutras) says that yoga means samadhi (concentration). Larson notes that in the Vyāsa Bhāsy the term "samadhi" refers to "all levels of mental life" (sārvabhauma), that is, "all possible states of awareness, whether ordinary or extraordinary".

A person who practices yoga, or follows the yoga philosophy with a high level of commitment, is called a yogi; a female yogi may also be known as a yogini.

Definition

In classical texts

The term "yoga" has been defined in different ways in Indian philosophical and religious traditions.

Scholarly

Due to its complicated historical development, and the broad array of definitions and usage in Indian religions, scholars have warned that yoga is hard, if not impossible, to define exactly. David Gordon White notes that "'Yoga' has a wider range of meanings than nearly any other word in the entire Sanskrit lexicon."

In its broadest sense, yoga is a generic term for techniques aimed at controlling body and mind and attaining a soteriological goal as specified by a specific tradition:

Richard King (1999): "Yoga in the more traditional sense of the term has been practised throughout South Asia and beyond and involves a multitude of techniques leading to spiritual and ethical purification. Hindu and Buddhist traditions alike place a great deal of emphasis upon the practice of yoga as a means of attaining liberation from the world of rebirth and yogic practices have been aligned with a variety of philosophical theories and metaphysical positions."

John Bowker (2000): "The means or techniques for transforming consciousness and attaining liberation (mokṣa) from karma and rebirth (saṃsāra) in Indian religions."

Damien Keown (2004): "Any form of spiritual discipline aimed at gaining control over the mind with the ultimate aim of attaining liberation from rebirth."

W. J. Johnson (2009): "A generic term for a wide variety of religious practices [...] At its broadest, however, 'yoga' simply refers to a particular method or discipline for transforming the individual [...] A narrower reading makes the practice contingent on, or derived from, control of the body and the senses, as in haṭha-yoga, or control of the breath (prāṇāyāma) and through it the mind, as in Patañjali's rājayoga. At its most neutral, yoga is therefore simply a technique, or set of techniques, including what is usually termed 'meditation', for attaining whatever soteriological or soteriological-cum-physiological transformation a particular tradition specifies."

Knut A. Jacobsen writes that yoga has five principal meanings:

History

There is no consensus on yoga's chronology or origins other than its development in ancient India. There are two broad theories explaining the origins of yoga. The linear model holds that yoga has Vedic origins (as reflected in Vedic texts), and influenced Buddhism. This model is mainly supported by Hindu scholars. According to the synthesis model, yoga is a synthesis of indigenous, non-Vedic practices with Vedic elements. This model is favoured in Western scholarship.

The earliest yoga-practices may have appeared in the Jain tradition at ca. 900 BCE. Speculations about yoga are documented in the early Upanishads of the first half of the first millennium BCE, with expositions also appearing in Jain and Buddhist texts c. 500 – c. 200 BCE. Between 200 BCE and 500 CE, traditions of Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain philosophy were taking shape; teachings were collected as sutras, and a philosophical system of Patanjaliyogasastra began to emerge. The Middle Ages saw the development of a number of yoga satellite traditions. It and other aspects of Indian philosophy came to the attention of the educated Western public during the mid-19th century.

Origins

Heinrich Zimmer was an exponent of the synthesis model, arguing for non-Vedic eastern states of India. According to Zimmer, yoga is part of a non-Vedic system which includes the Samkhya school of Hindu philosophy, Jainism and Buddhism: "[Jainism] does not derive from Brahman-Aryan sources, but reflects the cosmology and anthropology of a much older pre-Aryan upper class of northeastern India [Bihar] – being rooted in the same subsoil of archaic metaphysical speculation as Yoga, Sankhya, and Buddhism, the other non-Vedic Indian systems." More recently, Richard Gombrich and Geoffrey Samuel also argue that the śramaṇa movement originated in the non-Vedic eastern Ganges basin, specifically Greater Magadha.

Thomas McEvilley favors a composite model in which a pre-Aryan yoga prototype existed in the pre-Vedic period and was refined during the Vedic period. According to Gavin Flood, the Upanishads differ fundamentally from the Vedic ritual tradition and indicate non-Vedic influences. However, the traditions may be connected:

[T]his dichotomization is too simplistic, for continuities can undoubtedly be found between renunciation and vedic Brahmanism, while elements from non-Brahmanical, Sramana traditions also played an important part in the formation of the renunciate ideal.

The ascetic traditions of the eastern Ganges plain are thought to be drawn from a common body of practices and philosophies, with proto-samkhya concepts of purusha and prakriti as a common denominator.

According to Edward Fitzpatrick Crangle, Hindu researchers have favoured a linear theory which attempts "to interpret the origin and early development of Indian contemplative practices as a sequential growth from an Aryan genesis"; traditional Hinduism regards the Vedas as the source of all spiritual knowledge. Edwin Bryant wrote that authors who support Indigenous Aryanism also tend to support the linear model.

The twentieth-century scholars Karel Werner, Thomas McEvilley, and Mircea Eliade believed that the central figure of the Pashupati seal is seated in the Mulabandhasana posture, and the roots of yoga are in the Indus Valley Civilisation. This is rejected by more recent scholarship; for example, Geoffrey Samuel, Andrea R. Jain, and Wendy Doniger describe the identification as speculative; the meaning of the figure will remain unknown until Harappan script is deciphered, and the roots of yoga cannot be linked to the IVC.

Earliest references (1000–500 BCE)

The Vedas, the only texts preserved from the early Vedic period and codified between c. 1200 and 900 BCE, contain references to yogic practices primarily related to ascetics outside, or on the fringes of Brahmanism. The earliest yoga-practices may have come from the Jain tradition at ca. 900 BCE.

The Rigveda's Nasadiya Sukta suggests an early Brahmanic contemplative tradition. Techniques for controlling breath and vital energies are mentioned in the Atharvaveda and in the Brahmanas (the second layer of the Vedas, composed c. 1000–800 BCE).

According to Flood, "The Samhitas [the mantras of the Vedas] contain some references ... to ascetics, namely the Munis or Keśins and the Vratyas." Werner wrote in 1977 that the Rigveda does not describe yoga, and there is little evidence of practices. The earliest description of "an outsider who does not belong to the Brahminic establishment" is found in the Keśin hymn 10.136, the Rigveda's youngest book, which was codified around 1000 BCE. Werner wrote that there were

... individuals who were active outside the trend of Vedic mythological creativity and the Brahminic religious orthodoxy and therefore little evidence of their existence, practices and achievements has survived. And such evidence as is available in the Vedas themselves is scanty and indirect. Nevertheless the indirect evidence is strong enough not to allow any doubt about the existence of spiritually highly advanced wanderers.

According to Whicher (1998), scholarship frequently fails to see the connection between the contemplative practices of the rishis and later yoga practices: "The proto-Yoga of the Vedic rishis is an early form of sacrificial mysticism and contains many elements characteristic of later Yoga that include: concentration, meditative observation, ascetic forms of practice (tapas), breath control practiced in conjunction with the recitation of sacred hymns during the ritual, the notion of self-sacrifice, impeccably accurate recitation of sacred words (prefiguring mantra-yoga), mystical experience, and the engagement with a reality far greater than our psychological identity or the ego." Jacobsen wrote in 2018, "Bodily postures are closely related to the tradition of tapas, ascetic practices in the Vedic tradition"; ascetic practices used by Vedic priests "in their preparations for the performance of the sacrifice" may be precursors of yoga. "The ecstatic practice of enigmatic longhaired muni in Rgveda 10.136 and the ascetic performance of the vratya-s in the Atharvaveda outside of or on the fringe of the Brahmanical ritual order, have probably contributed more to the ascetic practices of yoga."

Second urbanisation (500–200 BCE)

Systematic yoga concepts begin to emerge in texts dating to c. 500–200 BCE, such as the early Buddhist texts, the middle Upanishads, and the Mahabharata's Bhagavad Gita and Shanti Parva.

According to Geoffrey Samuel, the "best evidence to date" suggests that yogic practices "developed in the same ascetic circles as the early śramaṇa movements (Buddhists, Jainas and Ajivikas), probably in around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE." This occurred during India's second urbanisation period. According to Mallinson and Singleton, these traditions were the first to use mind-body techniques (known as Dhyāna and tapas) but later described as yoga, to strive for liberation from the round of rebirth.

Werner writes, "The Buddha was the founder of his [Yoga] system, even though, admittedly, he made use of some of the experiences he had previously gained under various Yoga teachers of his time." He notes:

But it is only with Buddhism itself as expounded in the Pali Canon that we can speak about a systematic and comprehensive or even integral school of Yoga practice, which is thus the first and oldest to have been preserved for us in its entirety.

Early Buddhist texts describe yogic and meditative practices, some of which the Buddha borrowed from the śramaṇa tradition. The Pāli Canon contains three passages in which the Buddha describes pressing the tongue against the palate to control hunger or the mind, depending on the passage. There is no mention of the tongue inserted into the nasopharynx, as in khecarī mudrā. The Buddha used a posture in which pressure is put on the perineum with the heel, similar to modern postures used to evoke Kundalini. Suttas which discuss yogic practice include the Satipatthana Sutta (the four foundations of mindfulness sutta) and the Anapanasati Sutta (the mindfulness of breathing sutta).

The chronology of these yoga-related early Buddhist texts, like the ancient Hindu texts, is unclear. Early Buddhist sources such as the Majjhima Nikāya mention meditation; the Aṅguttara Nikāya describes jhāyins (meditators) who resemble early Hindu descriptions of muni, the Kesin and meditating ascetics, but the meditation practices are not called "yoga" in these texts. The earliest known discussions of yoga in Buddhist literature, as understood in a modern context, are from the later Buddhist Yogācāra and Theravada schools.

Classical era (200 BCE – 500 CE)

The Indic traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism were taking shape during the period between the Mauryan and the Gupta eras (c. 200 BCE – 500 CE), and systems of yoga began to emerge; a number of texts from these traditions discussed and compiled yoga methods and practices. Key works of the era include the Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali, the Yoga-Yājñavalkya, the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra, and the Visuddhimagga.

One of the best-known early expressions of Brahminical yoga thought is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali (early centuries CE, the original name of which may have been the Pātañjalayogaśāstra-sāṃkhya-pravacana (c. 325–425 CE); some scholars believe that it included the sutras and Patanjali's own commentary. As the name suggests, the metaphysical basis of the text is samkhya; the school is mentioned in Kauṭilya's Arthashastra as one of the three categories of anviksikis (philosophies), with yoga and Cārvāka. Yoga and samkhya have some differences; yoga accepted the concept of a personal god, and Samkhya was a rational, non-theistic system of Hindu philosophy. Patanjali's system is sometimes called "Seshvara Samkhya", distinguishing it from Kapila's Nirivara Samkhya. The parallels between yoga and samkhya were so close that Max Müller says, "The two philosophies were in popular parlance distinguished from each other as Samkhya with and Samkhya without a Lord." Karel Werner wrote that the systematization of yoga which began in the middle and early Yoga Upanishads culminated in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

The Yoga Sutras are also influenced by the Sramana traditions of Buddhism and Jainism, and may be a further Brahmanical attempt to adopt yoga from those traditions. Larson noted a number of parallels in ancient samkhya, yoga and Abhidharma Buddhism, particularly from the second century BCE to the first century AD. Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are a synthesis of the three traditions. From Samkhya, they adopt the "reflective discernment" (adhyavasaya) of prakrti and purusa (dualism), their metaphysical rationalism, and their three epistemological methods of obtaining knowledge. Larson says that the Yoga Sutras pursue an altered state of awareness from Abhidharma Buddhism's nirodhasamadhi; unlike Buddhism's "no self or soul", however, yoga (like Samkhya) believes that each individual has a self. The third concept which the Yoga Sutras synthesize is the ascetic tradition of meditation and introspection.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras are considered the first compilation of yoga philosophy. The verses of the Yoga Sutras are terse. Many later Indian scholars studied them and published their commentaries, such as the Vyasa Bhashya (c. 350–450 CE). Patanjali defines the word "yoga" in his second sutra, and his terse definition hinges on the meaning of three Sanskrit terms. I. K. Taimni translates it as "Yoga is the inhibition (nirodhaḥ) of the modifications (vṛtti) of the mind (citta)". Swami Vivekananda translates the sutra as "Yoga is restraining the mind-stuff (Citta) from taking various forms (Vrittis)." Edwin Bryant writes that to Patanjali, "Yoga essentially consists of meditative practices culminating in attaining a state of consciousness free from all modes of active or discursive thought, and of eventually attaining a state where consciousness is unaware of any object external to itself, that is, is only aware of its own nature as consciousness unmixed with any other object."

Middle Ages (500–1500 CE)

The Middle Ages saw the development of satellite yoga traditions, and the emergence of hatha yoga.

In medieval Hinduism, the Bhakti movement advocated the concept of a personal god or Supreme Personality. The movement, begun by the Alvars of South India during the 6th to 9th centuries, became influential throughout India by the 12th to 15th centuries. Shaiva and Vaishnava bhakti traditions integrated aspects of the Yoga Sutras (such as meditative exercises) with devotion. The Bhagavata Purana elucidates a form of yoga known as viraha (separation) bhakti, which emphasizes concentration on Krishna.

Tantra is a range of esoteric traditions which had begun to arise in India by the 5th century CE. Its use suggests that the word tantra in the Rigveda means "technique". George Samuel wrote that tantra is a contested term, but may be considered a school whose practices appeared in nearly-complete form in Buddhist and Hindu texts by about the 10th century CE. Tantric yoga developed complex visualizations, which included meditation on the body as a microcosm of the cosmos. It included mantras, breath control, and body manipulation (including its nadis and chakras. Teachings about chakras and Kundalini became central to later forms of Indian yoga.

Tantric concepts influenced Hindu, Bon, Buddhist, and Jain traditions. Elements of Tantric rituals were adopted by, and influenced, state functions in medieval Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms in East and Southeast Asia. By the turn of the first millennium, hatha yoga emerged from tantra.

Vajrayana is also known as Tantric Buddhism and Tantrayāna. Its texts began to be compiled during the seventh century CE, and Tibetan translations were completed the following century. These tantra texts were the main source of Buddhist knowledge imported into Tibet, and were later translated into Chinese and other Asian languages. The Buddhist text Hevajra Tantra and caryāgiti introduced hierarchies of chakras. Yoga is a significant practice in Tantric Buddhism.

Tantra yoga practices include postures and breathing exercises. The Nyingma school practices yantra yoga, a discipline which includes breath work, meditation and other exercises. Nyingma meditation is divided into stages, such as Kriya Yoga, Upa yoga, Yoga yana, mahā yoga, Anu yoga and atiyoga. The Sarma traditions also include Kriya, Upa (called "Charya"), and yoga, with anuttara yoga replacing mahayoga and atiyoga.

Modern yoga

Elizabeth de Michelis distinguished four types of modern yoga, namely "Modern Psychosomatic Yoga" such as that of Yogendra, Kuvalayananda, and Sivananda, emphasising practical experience; "Modern Denominational Yoga" such as that of Brahma Kumaris, Sahaja Yoga, and ISKCON, emphasising each school's own teachings; "Modern Postural Yoga" (yoga as exercise) emphasising the practice of asanas; and "Modern Meditational Yoga" emphasising mental techniques of concentration and meditation, such as those of early Transcendental Meditation and Sri Chinmoy. Mark Singleton does not subscribe to De Michelis's framework, instead considering "modern yoga" to be a descriptive name for "yoga in the modern age".

Yoga and other aspects of Indian philosophy came to the attention of the educated Western public during the mid-19th century, and N. C. Paul published his Treatise on Yoga Philosophy in 1851. Swami Vivekananda, the first Hindu teacher to advocate and disseminate elements of yoga to a Western audience, toured Europe and the United States in the 1890s. His reception built on the interest of intellectuals who included the New England Transcendentalists; among them were Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), who drew on German Romanticism and philosophers and scholars such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831), the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel (1767–1845) and Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829), Max Mueller (1823–1900), and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860).

Theosophists, including Helena Blavatsky, also influenced the Western public's view of yoga. Esoteric views at the end of the 19th century encouraged the reception of Vedanta and yoga, with their correspondence between the spiritual and the physical. The reception of yoga and Vedanta entwined with the (primarily neoplatonic) currents of religious and philosophical reform and transformation during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Mircea Eliade brought a new element to yoga, emphasizing tantric yoga in his Yoga: Immortality and Freedom. With the introduction of tantra traditions and philosophy, the conception of the "transcendent" attained by yogic practice shifted from the mind to the body.

In 1925, Paramahansa Yogananda came from India to the United States and started the Kriya Yoga school in Los Angeles, becoming one of the first Indian Yoga teachers to settle in America.

Yoga as exercise, the postural yoga of the Western world, is a physical activity consisting of asanas, often connected by smooth transitions, sometimes accompanied by breathing exercises and usually ending with a period of relaxation or meditation. It is often known simply as "yoga", despite older traditions in which asanas played little or no part; asanas were not central to any tradition.

Traditions

Yoga is practised with a variety of methods by all Indian religions. In Hinduism, practices include jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, karma yoga, kundalini yoga, and hatha yoga.

Jain yoga

Yoga has been a central practice in Jainism. Jain spirituality is based on a strict code of nonviolence, or ahimsa (which includes vegetarianism), almsgiving (dāna), faith in the three jewels, austerities (tapas) such as fasting, and yoga. Jain yoga aims at the liberation and purification of the self from the forces of karma, which binds the self to the cycle of reincarnation. Like yoga and Sankhya, Jainism believes in a number of individual selves bound by their individual karma. Only through the reduction of karmic influences and the exhaustion of collected karma can one become purified and released. Early Jain yoga seems to have been divided into several types, including meditation, abandonment of the body (kāyotsarga), contemplation, and reflection (bhāvanā).

Buddhist yoga

Buddhist yoga encompasses a variety of methods which aim to develop the 37 aids to awakening. Its ultimate goal is bodhi (awakening) or nirvana (cessation), traditionally seen as the permanent end of suffering (dukkha) and rebirth. Buddhist texts use a number of terms for spiritual praxis in addition to yoga, such as bhāvanā ("development") and jhāna/dhyāna.

In early Buddhism, yoga practices included:

the four dhyānas (four meditations or mental absorptions),

the four satipatthanas (foundations or establishments of mindfulness),

anapanasati (mindfulness of breath),

the four immaterial dwellings (supranormal states of mind),

the brahmavihārās (divine abodes).

Anussati (contemplations, recollections)

These meditations were seen as supported by the other elements of the Noble Eightfold Path, such as ethics, right exertion, sense restraint and right view. Two mental qualities are said to be indispensable for yoga practice in Buddhism: samatha (calm, stability) and vipassanā (insight, clear seeing). Samatha is a stable, relaxed mind, associated with samadhi (mental unification, focus) and dhyana (a state of meditative absorption). Vipassanā is insight or penetrative understanding into the true nature of phenomena, also defined as "seeing things as they truly are" (yathābhūtaṃ darśanam). A unique feature of classical Buddhism is its understanding of all phenomena (dhammas) as being empty of a self.

Later developments in Buddhist traditions led to innovations in yoga practice. The conservative Theravada school developed new ideas on meditation and yoga in its later works, the most influential of which is the Visuddhimagga. Mahayana meditation teachings may be seen in the Yogācārabhūmi-Śāstra, compiled c. 4th century. Mahayana also developed and adopted yoga methods such as the use of mantras and dharani, pure land practices aiming at rebirth in a pure land or buddhafield, and visualization. Chinese Buddhism developed the Chan practice of Koan introspection and Hua Tou. Tantric Buddhism developed and adopted tantric methods which are the basis of the Tibetan Buddhist yoga systems, including deity yoga, guru yoga, the six yogas of Naropa, Kalacakra, Mahamudra and Dzogchen.

Classical yoga

Classical yoga, ashtanga yoga, or rāja yoga is primarily the yoga outlined in the dualistic Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The origins of classical yoga are unclear, although early discussions of the term appear in the Upanishads. Rāja yoga (yoga of kings) originally denoted the ultimate goal of yoga; samadhi, but was popularised by Vivekananda as a common name for ashtanga yoga, the eight limbs attain samadhi as described in the Yoga Sutras. Yoga philosophy came to be regarded as a distinct orthodox school (darsanas) of Hinduism in the second half of the first millennium CE.

Classical yoga incorporates epistemology, metaphysics, ethical practices, systematic exercises and self-development for body, mind and spirit. Its epistemology (pramana) and metaphysics are similar to the Sāṅkhya school. The Classical yoga's metaphysics, like Sāṅkhya's, primarily posits two distinct realities: prakriti (nature, the eternal and active unconscious source of the material world composed of three guṇas) and puruṣa (consciousness), the plural consciousnesses which are the intelligent principles of the world. Moksha (liberation) results from the isolation (kaivalya) of puruṣa from prakirti, and is achieved through meditation, stilling one's thought waves (citta vritti) and resting in pure awareness of puruṣa. Unlike Sāṅkhya, which takes a non-theistic approach, the yoga school of Hinduism accepts a "personal, yet essentially inactive, deity" or "personal god" (Ishvara).

In Advaita Vedanta

Vedanta is a varied tradition, with a number of sub-schools and philosophical views. It focuses on the study of the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras (one of its early texts), about gaining spiritual knowledge of Brahman: the unchanging, absolute reality.

One of the earliest and most influential sub-traditions of Vedanta is Advaita Vedanta, which posits non-dualistic monism. It emphasizes jñāna yoga (yoga of knowledge), which aims at realizing the identity of one's atman (individual consciousness) with Brahman (the Absolute consciousness). The most influential thinker of this school is Adi Shankara (8th century), who wrote commentaries and other works on jñāna yoga. In Advaita Vedanta, jñāna is attained from scripture, one's guru, and through a process of listening to (and meditating on) teachings. Qualities such as discrimination, renunciation, tranquility, temperance, dispassion, endurance, faith, attention, and a longing for knowledge and freedom are also desirable. Yoga in Advaita is a "meditative exercise of withdrawal from the particular and identification with the universal, leading to contemplation of oneself as the most universal, namely, Consciousness".

Yoga Vasistha is an influential Advaita text which uses short stories and anecdotes to illustrate its ideas. Teaching seven stages of yoga practice, it was a major reference for medieval Advaita Vedanta yoga scholars and one of the most popular texts on Hindu yoga before the 12th century. Another text which teaches yoga from an Advaita point of view is the Yoga Yajnavalkya.

Tantric yoga

According to Samuel, Tantra is a contested concept. Tantra yoga may be described as practices in 9th to 10th century Buddhist and Hindu (Saiva, Shakti) texts which included yogic practices with elaborate deity visualizations using geometric arrays and drawings (mandalas), male and (particularly) female deities, life-stage-related rituals, the use of chakras and mantras, and sexual techniques aimed at aiding one's health, longevity and liberation.

Hatha yoga

Hatha yoga focuses on physical and mental strength-building exercises and postures described primarily in three Hindu texts:

Hatha Yoga Pradipika by Svātmārāma (15th century)

Shiva Samhita, author unknown (1500 or late 17th century)

Gheranda Samhita by Gheranda (late 17th century)

Some scholars include Gorakshanath's 11th-century Goraksha Samhita on the list. Vajrayana Buddhism, founded by the Indian Mahasiddhas, has a series of asanas and pranayamas (such as tummo) which resemble hatha yoga.

Laya and kundalini yoga

Laya and kundalini yoga, closely associated with hatha yoga, are often presented as independent approaches. According to Georg Feuerstein, laya yoga (yoga of dissolution or merging) "makes meditative absorption (laya) its focus. The laya-yogin seeks to transcend all memory traces and sensory experiences by dissolving the microcosm, the mind, in the transcendental Self-Consciousness." Laya yoga has a number of techniques which include listening to the "inner sound" (nada), mudras such as Khechari and Shambhavi mudra, and awakening kundalini (body energy).

Kundalini yoga aims to awaken bodily and cosmic energy with breath and body techniques, uniting them with universal consciousness. A common teaching method awakens kundalini in the lowest chakra and guides it through the central channel to unite with the absolute consciousness in the highest chakra, at the top of the head.

Reception by other religions

Christianity

Some Christians integrate physical aspects of yoga, stripped from the spiritual roots of Hinduism, and other aspects of Eastern spirituality with prayer, meditation and Jesus-centric affirmations. The practice also includes renaming poses in English (rather than using the original Sanskrit terms), and abandoning involved Hindu mantras as well as the philosophy of Yoga; Yoga is associated and reframed into Christianity. This has drawn charges of cultural appropriation from various Hindu groups; scholars remain skeptical. Previously, the Roman Catholic Church, and some other Christian organizations have expressed concerns and disapproval with respect to some eastern and New Age practices that include yoga and meditation.

In 1989 and 2003, the Vatican issued two documents: Aspects of Christian meditation and "A Christian reflection on the New Age," that were mostly critical of eastern and New Age practices. The 2003 document was published as a 90-page handbook detailing the Vatican's position. The Vatican warned that concentration on the physical aspects of meditation "can degenerate into a cult of the body" and that equating bodily states with mysticism "could also lead to psychic disturbance and, at times, to moral deviations." Such has been compared to the early days of Christianity, when the church opposed the gnostics' belief that salvation came not through faith but through mystical inner knowledge. The letter also says, "one can see if and how [prayer] might be enriched by meditation methods developed in other religions and cultures" but maintains the idea that "there must be some fit between the nature of [other approaches to] prayer and Christian beliefs about ultimate reality." Fundamentalist Christian organizations have sometimes considered yoga incompatible with their religious background, considering it a part of the New Age movement inconsistent with Christianity.

Islam

Early-11th-century Persian scholar Al-Biruni visited India, lived with Hindus for 16 years, and (with their help) translated several Sanskrit works into Arabic and Persian; one of these was Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Although Al-Biruni's translation preserved many core themes of Patañjali's yoga philosophy, some sutras and commentaries were restated for consistency with monotheistic Islamic theology. Al-Biruni's version of the Yoga Sutras reached Persia and the Arabian Peninsula by about 1050. During the 16th century, the hatha yoga text Amritakunda was translated into Arabic and Persian. Yoga was, however, not accepted by mainstream Sunni and Shia Islam. Minority Islamic sects such as the mystic Sufi movement, particularly in South Asia, adopted Indian yoga postures and breath control. Muhammad Ghawth, a 16th-century Shattari Sufi and translator of yoga text, was criticized for his interest in yoga and persecuted for his Sufi beliefs.

Malaysia's top Islamic body imposed a legally-enforceable 2008 fatwa prohibiting Muslims from practicing yoga, saying that it had elements of Hinduism and its practice was haram as blasphemy. Malaysian Muslims who had been practicing yoga for years called the decision "insulting." Sisters in Islam, a Malaysian women's-rights group, expressed disappointment and said that yoga was a form of exercise. Malaysia's prime minister clarified that yoga as exercise is permissible, but the chanting of religious mantras is not.

The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) imposed a 2009 fatwa banning yoga practices such as chanting or repeating mantras because those contained Hindu elements; yoga purely as exercise was permitted. These fatwas have been criticized by Darul Uloom Deoband, a Deobandi Islamic seminary in India. Similar fatwas banning yoga for its link to Hinduism were imposed by Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa in Egypt in 2004, and by Islamic clerics in Singapore earlier.

According to Iran's yoga association, the country had about 200 yoga centres in May 2014. One-quarter were in the capital, Tehran, where groups could be seen practising in parks; conservatives were opposed. In May 2009, Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs head Ali Bardakoğlu discounted personal-development techniques such as reiki and yoga as commercial ventures which could lead to extremism. According to Bardakoğlu, reiki and yoga could be a form of proselytizing at the expense of Islam. Nouf Marwaai brought yoga to Saudi Arabia in 2017, contributing to making it legal and recognized despite being allegedly threatened by her community which asserts yoga as "un-Islamic".