It’d shock many individuals to be taught that yoga has a protracted historical past in the USA. For lots of Individuals, their data of yoga could solely date again to the Sixties, when the ideas of spiritualism and meditation had been embraced by the nation’s counterculture.

But it surely would possibly shock you to be taught that yoga has a far longer historical past within the U.S., relationship again to the late 1800s yoga bolster pillow B08RNK8M73.

In 1883, Swami Vivekananda made an look on the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago the place he greeted his “sisters and brothers of America”, a salutation that introduced a standing ovation from the massive viewers in attendance. His idea that all the religions of the world are merely separate elements of a bigger faith was a brand new idea to these listening to him communicate in regards to the thoughts, body and spirit.

Shortly after the arrival of Swami Vivekananda, Yogendra Mastamani additionally traveled to the U.S. from India and arrange a base in Lengthy Island, N.Y. in 1919 and created the American department of Kaivalyadhama, which is an India-based group that was a frontrunner within the exploration of yoga from a scientific perspective. Mastamani launched Hatha Yoga to the USA.

One yr later, one of the fashionable yogis of all time, Paramahansa Yogananda, arrived in Boston to introduce kriya yoga to the U.S. He created the Self-Realization Fellowship, which now has its headquarters in Los Angeles. Yogananda additionally wrote the world-famous greatest vendor, “Autobiography of a Yogi”, a e-book that’s nonetheless an inspirational useful resource for a lot of yoga instructors and college students.

Starting within the Thirties, Jiddu Krishnamurti achieved a brand new stage of notoriety for a yogi when he started giving well-received, eloquent seminars on Jnana-Yoga, or the yoga of discernment. His enlightening talks introduced him consideration from plenty of celebrities, together with actors Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo and writers Aldous Huxley and George Bernard Shaw.

In 1924, the U.S. imposed a restriction on the variety of Indians it could permit to maneuver to the U.S., that means college students who sought the teachings of yogis needed to travel to India. Certainly one of these college students was Theos Bernard, who traveled to India and got here again in 1947 to put in writing the e-book “Hatha Yoga: The Report of a Personal Expertise”, an influential e-book which continues to be extensively at the moment.