Yoga and America Part 1: Before Yoga Came to America

Yoga was quite different before it reached our shores! All the yoga practices—asana, pranayama, bandhas and mudras, meditation, and purification—were integrated as spiritual practice. Panditji explains that asana was relatively unimportant, except to prepare the body for meditation. He also comments that there were two main types of people who practiced yoga—the sadhus and the occasional practitioners—though no one looked to yoga as a profession.