An introductory brief history of yoga in North America.
We must fast forward thousands of years from Patanjali to 1893 to determine the roots of yoga in North America, where a yogi by the name of Swami Vivekanada presented yoga to the Chicago-based World Parliament of Religions. Although the lecture was well-received by those attending the conference, the roots of why it did so well laid with others, who had started presenting the Hindi practices to North America more than two decades earlier.
Madame Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steel Olcott formed the Theosophical Society in 1877, supporting its member base to study eastern religions and philosophical viewpoints. Madame Blavatsky then published two books, Isis Unveiled in 1877 and The Secret Doctrine in 1888, which discussed at length the Hindi texts and their teachings.
Somewhere in the same time frame, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, both well-known philosophers of their time, used the Bhagivad Gita as inspiration, and eventually used what they learned to share with others, creating a movement called transcendentalism. This movement, still alive today, presented self-reliance and spiritual leanings in ways Americans had never seen before. This group became extremely influential in its ability to allow Americans to learn more about yoga and accept its teachings.
After his presentation at the World Parliament of Religions, Swami Vivekanada created the New York Vedanta Society, a group still in existence today. However, this group practiced Raja yoga (a method that focuses on mediation and intellectual enlightenment) rather than Hatha yoga (the physical postures that most North Americans are familiar with and identify with yoga.
Hatha yoga was brought to North America in 1919 in Long Island, New York. Introduced to the country by ashram leader Yogendra Mastamani, hatha yoga was introduced through alternative medicine channels that still exist today. By the next year, interest in yoga exercises increased through several channels, but most importantly through the author of Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda. More modern breakthroughs occurred with TV’s first yoga programs starting in 1961, and then with public television taking on the practice through Lilian Folan, whose series started in the mid-70s and ended up filming more than 500 shows.
