How To Maximize The Power Of Yoga

Yoga In The West

Yoga as a concept was introduced in the West a long time ago. It is only now that more and

more Americans are taking it more seriously than they ever did before.

Yoga as a way of life is catching on fast with the Westerners as more and more people

familiarize themselves with the truth behind this centuries-old Indian practice.

It was towards the end of the eighteenth century that Western scholars began to understand

how closely related the Indian languages are with their European counterparts. The study of

such an interconnectedness that ensued introduced them to the concept of yoga as it was

present in the Indian sacred texts.

A breakthrough came when Englishman Charles Wilkins pioneered the translation of Sanskrit

text of The Bhagvad Gita to English. It was also the efforts of American statesman Alexander

Hamilton who closely studies the Indian culture, tradition, languages and even delivered a

lecture in Paris about India in the year 1802-03.

By the nineteenth century, the knowledge of yoga was spreading among the Westerners who

were involved closely with the study of Indian texts. They were able to trace the development of

the concept from its source, now that English translations of the texts were available to them.

Notable in this field and worthy of mention are the efforts of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph

Waldo Emerson who made the above mentioned possible. Also, during the same time, a strain

of the though processes behind yoga also began to be felt in the works of the American and

European Romantics.

However, as is commonly known, and earlier mentioned, yoga has become a way of life with

many Westerners. It has not only been incorporated in the daily lives of people, but also in their

way of thinking.

This knowledge of yoga as a concept came into the popular consciousness of westerners

through several instances of cross-fertilization due to close interaction between the two cultures...

SADO