In order to understand and know the correct history of yoga, we will have to rewrite the history. The history we read and know today has been written from time to time with certain political or colonial motives. History, when it is written, should have a motive to record the events, not to fulfil and accomplish the designs of rulers.
The Bhagavad Gita was instructed to Arjuna at the end of the cycle of Dwarpa Yuga, at the beginning of Kali Yuga, and according to calculation, 5,100 years have already past. When Hindus perform their daily pooja in the temple, there is a chanting of sankalpa in which every day, one more day is added. It is called the kuha. That sankalpa should always be correct because one day is added every day. Much before the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads were written. In the Bhagavad Gita there is reference of the Upanishads. There are references in the Bhagavad Gita from which we understand that the Upanishads were written before the Bhagavad Gita. Out of 108 Upanishads, thirty Upanishads are minor, ten are major and the rest are known as simple Upanishads. Among these Upanishads many talk about yoga such as Yogatattwa Upanishad, Yoga Kundalini Upanishad. They deal directly with yoga, the word yoga and the topic yoga.
In the Prashnopanishad, you clearly come across the concept of ida and pingala. They do not say ida and pingala, but rayu and prana, ray and prana. Ray represents the mind and prana represents the life. These Upanishads were compiled much after the Vedas.
The Rig Veda is the most ancient Veda. Rik means hymn, also richa means hymn. The other Vedas are Yajur Veda, Sama Veda and Artharva Veda. In the Hindu tradition, there is reference to three and sometimes to four Vedas. For the chanting of the Bhagavad Gita, it is said:
Vedatrayi parananta tattvartha jnana manjari.
With the chanting of the Bhagavad Gita one will attain the knowledge of the three Vedas and the storehouse of knowledge of the meaning of the tattwa form.
There were certain sects who only recognized three Vedas and did not recognize the fourth, Artharva Veda, for the mere reason that it deals with all kinds of sciences such as magic, archery. The Rig Veda, Yajur Veda and Sama Veda dealt directly with the atman, Brahman, the supreme being. The subject matter of all the Vedas is para Brahman, or satyam, the ultimate truth, while the subject matter of the Artharva Veda is life. In the Artharva Veda you have a reference to pranayama, yogasanas, different hatha yogic kriyas such as neti, dhauti.
The composition of the Rig Veda is very complicated because some of the hymns seem to have been written outside India, especially the Usha Sukta. There is a sukta, an ode, to Usha, dawn. It is one of the most beautiful compositions in poetry written by anyone, giving a definition and description of dawn. Scholars feel that this hymn must have been composed where dawn is so poetic. It was not written in the Middle East, because in the Middle East when the sun rises it is frightful, because it is going to get very high degree of Fahrenheit. In India sunrise is very simple because it rises every day; 365 days you can see the rising of the sun. If you go to the Arctic area, the polar region where the sunrise is most wonderful because you are waiting for it for days together. Sometimes the sun does not rise for six months. You do not see the sun at all and you want that it should rise. Then one morning when the sun rises, it comes for about an hour and then it sets again. In Norway, above the Nordic region, millions of people go every day to watch the midnight sun.
This hymn to Usha must have been written in such a land. In the Puranas there is a story that relates almost to a civilization at the North Pole. The name of the rishi was Dhomya. He came to a kingdom at the North Pole, which would not have been a snow region. It must have been a thriving civilization some thousands of years ago. The prince and the prime minister’s son were playing and they were very rude to Dhomya. The rishi Dhomya wanted to be guided to some place where he could rest at night. These two kids misbehaved with him and Dhomya got furious.
The next morning the whole kingdom was buried under snow. This story indicates the coming of the snow age in the North Pole. Prior to that a civilization must have existed. Some of the hymns of the Rig Veda like the Usha Sukta composed in the arctic polar region, where a civilization was thriving, could not have been earlier than 45 to 50,000 years. If you are talking about 45 to 50,000 years, then that gives you the latest date in connection with the history of yoga.
However, we have another difficulty here. 45,000 years ago a great continent merged into the Atlantic Ocean. That civilization is known as Atlantis civilization. According to my studies, which are by no means complete yet, the Atlantis civilization was the mother civilization of the yoga culture. This continent did not merge all of a sudden, it must have taken a few centuries. The people migrated with the knowledge they had and came to different countries where they took the message of yoga.
The submerging of the Atlantis civilization and the history of the polar region must have taken place between 45,000 to 60,000 years ago. In the Rig Veda there are references of planetary conjunctions, graha yoga. Some of the scholars like Max Muller, Griffth, Wilson have pointed out that these planetary conjunctions took place 45,000 years ago. They have fixed the date also. So these hymns of the Rig Veda were written over 40,000 years ago.
You can believe how many centuries must have proceeded for the perfection of such a culture, people, a nation, which can write the most beautiful poetic hymns 45,000 years ago. A primitive culture just could not emerge and start writing it. So much before the period of the Rig Veda there must have been a culture already existing. In the Rig Veda you have a clear concept of the philosophy of yoga: about dhyana, concentration and the processes through which you can awaken your consciousness or you can elevate the level of your atman.
In earlier texts you do not find references to those yoga practices which relate to the treatment of diseases, because people were very healthy. They did not have many sicknesses of the type we have today. Therefore, when they write about yoga, they always say that through the practices of yoga the realm of maya and the realm of avidya is transcended.
In the Ishavasya Upanishad, the first of the Upanishads and the last chapter of the Yajur Veda, there are six mantras. It is said that those people who are only involved in the matter of the senses and mind, their spirit enters into the area of darkness, but those who involve in the path of the spirit, that is dhyana yoga, they still enter a darker region. Further it is said that there should be a combination of the two; the world of the senses and the world of the spirit, both must be evolved side by side. This is a clear indication to karma yoga and dhyana yoga. A combination of karma yoga and a combination of dhyana yoga is hinted at.
In 1973, when I was in Colombia for a big conference organized by our institution, I went to the south of Colombia. There are wild forests and not many people live there. First we went by helicopter, then by jeep, then I rode on a donkey. There were many people and swamis from different places with me. That area is called San Agustin and it is considered to be a museum. There is no building, and it is spread over a very big area of forest maybe hundreds of miles.
We took many photographs and printed them on the front cover page of the YOGA magazine for the last two years. These stone carvings are so wonderful that they speak their story by themselves.
I saw the stone carving of neti kriya. A person taking a lota and practising neti. Of course there were stone statues of padmasana, swastikasana, siddhasana, vipareeta karani, bhujangasana, vajrasana, vrishchikasana and many other asanas, also of uddiyana bandha. Hundreds of asanas in that wild area, so now you understand how far this has gone.
I have also travelled in different areas in Mexico and went to different temples of Shiva in remote areas. They are not very much looked after by the government, but still the people of the locality look after them. After a brief study, we have come to conclude that the civilization in Colombia preceding the invasion of the Spanish, Dutch, English people, like the different races of the Incas, Aztecs, Chibchas were well conversant with the principles of yoga.
The story goes that when the Spanish invaded there was a temple in every community, there used to be a temple at the top of the mountain where they consecrated their daughters. They used to live in those temples. Those temples were dedicated to Surya, for Incas were sun worshippers and did Surya pooja. They dedicated their daughters to that sun temple and used to dress in white and yellow, yellow colour means vasanti, and white colour is life. They used to live the life of sannyasins, not much is known as to what sadhana they did but it is known that they did not mix with the general public at all and they were only worshipping Surya. Whether this was the external Surya remains to be interpreted.
When the Spanish people invaded, they killed all of them. They packed all the gold and sent it to Europe. There is a written document. The letters written are now a part of the document of man’s cruelty upon innocent people who were dedicated to spiritual life and a non-political culture. Spiritual people are not dedicated to the political culture; they do not understand it. Just because we do not understand the political culture does not mean that we have to be massacred.
It is believed that the king in Colombia, on one full moon night, did some tantric ceremony and the gold powder came showering on him. Due to his tantric worships, he was completely buried under gold powder, and that is also the reason the name of the Colombian airport in Bogotá is El Dorado. This story resembles the story of Karna of the Mahabharata who did tantric worship in Munger which was his capital. He also received gold due to his worship to Devi and distributed the same to his subjects.
The people in Colombia are very rich in gold. In the museums you see nothing but gold. In Indian museums you find only Buddha statues of this granite and different stones. There you find everything is out of gold from the plate to the brassieres. I have seen golden brassieres finer than the brassieres our ladies wear, because they were very expert people and knew to work with gold very well. These people have a tradition of yoga much before. Then their culture was destroyed by the political system and this wild forest was left. San Agustin does not represent their culture. Colombians should have named this museum after their last king who was murdered. The Spanish invaders invited him to surrender and he said he would not surrender. They battled for days and they could not manage. Finally, these people said that they would become his friends. They were innocent. The Spanish arranged a dinner for him, he came unarmed and was killed. To such a man, this museum must have been dedicated.
Similarly, you go to south of France, to south of Ireland, you go to Scandinavian countries, then from there you go to Afghanistan, India, Tibet, South-East Asia and up to Vietnam. There seems to have been a belt where the yogic science was very much known to the people. We have been collecting a lot of evidence in Scandinavian countries. There is a brilliant swami there who has studied the yogic tradition in Scandinavian countries and has found in the old culture, the concept of kundalini, ida, pingala and sushumna, and the awakening of the inner spirit. From all these details we come to a conclusion that the culture of yoga is very ancient.
Of course it came to a sudden halt due to political systems. Political systems everywhere are responsible for the destruction of all that is beautiful that man has created. The science of politics is a science that inherits total selfishness. The political system is based on selfishness and the cult of power. Not all but most power hungry men must get power by hook or by crook. It does not matter which religion you uphold, it does not matter which religion you kill, it does not matter which frontiers you break and which ones you defeat – politicians are not interested in it. They are very selfish and conscious in order to get the lever of the power. They can prove anything, they can say and write anything, and the history you read today is written by these people.
This is how the culture of yoga was destroyed little by little in every country because the power went into the hands of the people who were not virtuous, but who became great heroes by killing people and raging wars. This is the way history was influenced by people.
19 October 1981, Munger