Yogi Baba Prem

The History of Vedic Yoga

While it is true that Vedic yoga is relatively unknown to most modern practitioners of yoga, it does serve as the root and foundation for most other known yoga systems. To understand Vedic yoga, one must travel back in time to the north central and northwestern regions of India. This is the motherland of Vedic yoga, and the homeland of the Vedic civilization and culture.

A great deal of information is being discovered about this ancient civilization through study of ancient texts, archaeological evidence and satellite imagery. While it was long believed that this ancient culture was an invading race from a distant land, known as the Aryan race; the evidence simply does not support this hypothesis. In reality, the Vedic people of this region were the Aryans which were divided into several lineages of people. The most common known today were the Nahusha people, which were divided into 5 different groups, occupying different parts of the Vedic homeland. If one were to refer to the Aryan race it would be a reference to these people and a few groups that were older. What is more important is the concept of Aryan culture. The term Aryan Culture transcends race and social/economic groups which define countries today.

The evidence of a Vedic culture is voluminous and displays an ancient world that was extremely mobile and well traveled. Within the Vayu Purana2 examples are given to the depth and

1Aryan is a Sanskrit term that means noble.

2The Vayu Purana is one of the oldest puranas known to humanity.

Puranas consist of what is called remembered information. It is information that has

been traditionally handed down over long periods of time.

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size of the Vedic culture. There are numerous references to 7 continents, seven oceans, and subcontinents. More importantly there is a reference to the Vedic lands as being quite expansive and surrounded by salt-water seas on all sides, suggesting that the Vedic Aryans considered all of Europe, Asia, and Asia Minor to be part of the Vedic culture. Mummies found in China, circa 1906, were discovered to not resemble people from the Orient, but rather had numerous European features and characteristics; including, but not limited to blond and most importantly red colored hair. Science has suggested a migration of European peoples to this region, but it is possible that these were travelers and visitors to portions of the Vedic culture, possibly returning for a sacred ritual, or a type of pilgrimage.

The age of the Vedic civilization is not clearly known, as the Hindu system deals with time periods that were inconceivable to western minds until relatively recently. It would clearly be safe to say that the Vedic teachings go back to the end of the last ice age, circa 8000 BCE. Within the Rig Veda, we find astrological references dating to about 6500 BCE. So one can be confident that Vedic Yoga is at least 8500 years old, with the reality being that it is most likely considerably older, as it is not realistic to believe that these teachings suddenly manifested in a short period of time.

While many accounts present people of this age as in backward, primitive people, the reality is that they were a spirituality-advanced group that valued animism. Whereas animism is devalued in our present society, it was in reality not a purely naturalistic, frightened religious system as is presented by many scholars. It was a common and basic belief that all of nature was divine. That divinity permeated all aspects of life and every manifestation of life. This is the foundation of most "New-Age" beliefs in modern society. It is also reflected in a variety of teachings such as the Native American tradition. It even appears in Christianity with terms such as omnipotent, though the Church does not heavily focus on this concept.

Vedic yoga is one of the, if not the oldest spiritual system known to mankind. The reality is that all people practice some form of spirituality from Vedic yoga, even if they are not aware of the proper term. As Vedic yoga appears to be the only record we have of the original mother of all yoga and spiritual systems.