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Today, yoga has become popular as a modality helping people to alleviate their physical, mental, and emotional imbalances. It is interesting to note that yoga as such was never meant to be a healing modality—yoga’s goal for a human being is to reach enlightenment, or union of one’s individual consciousness with Universal Consciousness. Yoga helps unify all aspects of our very being: the physical body, in which we live our daily life; the energy body, without which we will not have the capacity to do what we do; the mind body, which enables us to do our tasks with mindfulness; the higher intellect, which gives us clarity; and finally, the universal body, which gives us limitless bliss.
The three major time frames1 of yoga history
Pre-historic (before 500 BC)
In the period before the written word, all spiritual teachings were transmitted orally from master (guru) to student (sishya) in forest hermitages. These are the teachings found today in the Rig, Yajur, Sama, and Atharvana Vedas.2 The Rigveda talks about unity of the mind with the Divine in meditation (yunjate man ut yunjate dhiyo vipraa viprasya brihato vipashchitah; Rigveda Book 5 81:1); and the Yajurveda tells us that by regular yoga practice, we improve our strength (yoge yoge tavastaram vaaje vaaje havaamahe sakhaaya indramootaye; Yajurveda 11:14).