Yoga in the United States
overview about yoga in the United States
The history of yoga in the United States begins in the 19th century, with the philosophers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau; Emerson's poem "Brahma" states the Hindu philosophy behind yoga. More widespread interest in yoga can be dated to the Hindu leader Vivekananda's visit from India in 1893; he presented yoga as a spiritual path without postures (asanas), very different from modern yoga as exercise. Two other early figures, however, the women's rights advocate Ida C. Craddock and the businessman and occultist Pierre Bernard, created their own interpretations of yoga, based on tantra and oriented to physical pleasure.
The practice of yoga as consisting mainly of physical postures began in 1919 when the pioneer of asana-based yoga, Yogendra, brought his system, influenced by physical culture, to the United States. From 1948, Indra Devi, a pupil of Krishnamacharya, brought yoga to public attention by teaching celebrity pupils in her Hollywood studio. A large variety of asana systems evolved, including the precise Iyengar Yoga and Pattabhi Jois's energetic Ashtanga (vinyasa) yoga and its Power Yoga spinoffs. Spiritual styles also flourished, including Transcendental Meditation and Integral Yoga. Despite this, American yoga has largely detached from its religious roots, becoming part of the cosmopolitan "global popular".
Early pioneers
Long before yoga arrived in the United States, pioneering thinkers began to assimilate Indian thought. Among the first was the poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q65044666. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1893, 1919 and 1948.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yoga in the United States” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.