Many students seek the unbroken lineage of yoga, and as someone who has extensively explored the origins and evolution of yoga I want to tell you… it’s time to let that notion go. Yoga has a rich and diverse history that has been shaped through social and historical contexts. It has evolved from a spiritual endeavor to its modern physical interpretations with large impact from the industrial revolution. It’s so important to understand the historical and cultural influences on yoga today, and how this practice has changed over time. So that’s what I’ll dive into in today’s episode.
Listen to learn:
🔹Misconceptions around unbroken lineages in yoga.
🔹How yoga has evolved significantly since the industrial revolution.
🔹The way historical and social context has always influenced yoga.
Loved this episode and want to know more about yoga’s origins? Grab my History of Yoga course on sale now => https://www.brettlarkin.com/history-of-yoga-course/
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Relevant Blog: Where Did Yoga Originate: A Brief History of Yoga
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
💖 History of Yoga
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🎧 Also Listen to:
#279 – Yoga Sutras of Patanjali Summary – BOOK ONE Explained
#283 – Dismantling the Kleshas: The Actual Aim of Yoga
#358 – Intro to The Bhagavad Gita: How Do You Navigate Moral Dilemmas?
© 2025 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
Transcript:
Brett:
Hello, my friends. On this episode of the podcast, I wanted to talk a little bit about the origins of yoga. I feel like this is something all of us tend to be curious about. And I often hear in student circles—especially in Kundalini Yoga—that they want to study with a teacher or lineage that is unbroken. It’s like they want the pure stuff. Yoga that hasn’t been distorted by someone like Yogi Bhajan.
They want to trace back to the “original” Kundalini Yoga. But in researching for an academic paper, I came across fascinating findings: wanting to believe in an unbroken lineage of ancient yoga is kind of like believing in Santa Claus.
There’s no proof that yoga has been passed down intact. And the more I research, the more I see yoga has always been influenced by historical and social context—both in pre-modern times and today.
Yoga doesn’t belong to one religion. We see it in various traditions across South Asia. And yes, the yoga we practice today—especially the physical kind in studios—looks very different from ancient yoga.
Even in the past, yoga wasn’t tied to just one religion. It was part of a broader South Asian cultural tradition. And to make things more complicated, the Sanskrit word “yoga” can be translated in many ways—each with totally different meanings depending on the religious or political context.
One translator even said it’s one of the most complicated Sanskrit words. It can mean yoking a horse to a cart, spiritual enlightenment, or even a military term.
So, my invitation today is: instead of imagining yoga as one fixed, pure tradition, let’s start respecting it as a diverse, evolving practice that shifts with society’s needs and history.
That shift in perspective brings us to a more fulfilling relationship with yoga—rather than clinging to a childhood-like belief in one perfect guru or lineage. Just because something is from India or tied to a text like the Hatha Yoga Pradipika doesn’t automatically make it the most authentic.
In my book Yoga Life, I have a whole chapter (with pictures!) that shows how yoga was influenced by the European fitness industry at the turn of the century. And we’ll get to that in just a bit.
Until next time—thanks for listening. 🙏
So today we’re used to seeing yoga as a physical endeavor. If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably already aware that yoga is more than just sun salutations and asana.
But we need to understand: until the 20th century, yoga was primarily a spiritual practice. The spiritual, meditative side was about 80%, and the physical postures—maybe 20%.
In modern studios, it’s the reverse. And even in ancient times, movement was just a tiny part of yoga.
Ancient yoga wasn’t about physical health—it was about transcending the body to reach a blissful state of enlightenment, called samadhi. The body was actually seen as an obstacle to overcome.
This is where many of us are waking up. A whole generation of yogis is realizing how much of what we’ve been taught—across different lineages—actually encourages disconnection from the body.
In many cases, it trains us to spiritually bypass. Instead of processing trauma through the body (which can be messy and emotional), we’re taught to “even keel,” repeat a mantra, breathe deeply, and lift energy to the third eye. It’s all up and out.
That’s why I love the tantric model I teach in Uplifted™ Yoga: yes, go up and out—but also come back down and in.
Those of you in my 300-hour know our grounding system. In the 200-hour, we talk about energy ascension and descension—reintegrating after meditation or breathwork. We need both.
Now, historically, yoga was practiced mainly by two groups: elderly men and young priest boys. Think monks in training. These were people trying to reach enlightenment by studying scriptures, fasting, sometimes mortifying the flesh, or isolating themselves in caves.
That’s where we get the “yogi in a cave” cliché—intense breathwork, long meditation, strict moral codes.
Some traditions even forbade sexual activity at certain times.
If you’re wondering about the elderly part—retirement in ancient Indus Valley society meant preparing to leave your body. They believed in reincarnation, so older men would start practicing letting go of their physical form to make death easier.
They’d renounce their homes, their clothes, wander, meditate, and focus only on yogic purification. They didn’t have responsibilities—no kids, no chores.
Which brings up the big question: what about us?
We’re modern practitioners. We live in the real world. We know there’s more to yoga than asana, but we also have families, jobs, dishes to do.
And then someone hands us the Yoga Sutras.
Much attention in the West has been placed on the Yoga Sutras, specifically Book Two. That’s the book where Patanjali outlines the eight practices and ethical principles—the eight limbs—that lead to samadhi, or enlightenment.
And there are so many books out there that try to decode these eight limbs and map them onto our modern, busy lives. They suggest we can make them work for us.
But here’s the problem: if we look at the broader historical context, we realize that the Yoga Sutras are a meditation manual. That’s what they are.
They outline a systematic path for people—usually monks—who are trying to exit the physical body and attain enlightenment.
So trying to use them as a lifestyle guidebook is taking them completely out of context. It’s like going into your car’s glove compartment, pulling out the user manual, and saying, “I’m going to use this to become a better parent or improve my marriage.”
Sure, maybe you can make a few creative metaphors, but ultimately—it’s a car manual. That’s not what it’s for.
That’s why I’ve been talking so much this year about the Bhagavad Gita. It’s a much better fit for those of us who want to live our yoga.
The Gita opens with Arjuna—a warrior—facing a real-world moral crisis. He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, just like many of us.
He has two bad options and is overwhelmed. That’s when Krishna, his divine charioteer, starts educating him—and us—about yoga.
In the Bhagavad Gita, we learn about four major paths of yoga:
- Karma Yoga – the yoga of action
- Bhakti Yoga – the yoga of devotion
- Jnana Yoga – the yoga of knowledge
- Dhyana Yoga – the yoga of meditation
The Yoga Sutras would fall under that last one—Dhyana. But the Gita gives us a full picture.
And here’s the wild part: the word “yoga” appears only five times in the Yoga Sutras.
In contrast, it appears over 130 times in the Bhagavad Gita. Yet somehow, most Western teacher trainings skip the Gita entirely and obsess over the Sutras.
Why?
Because the Yoga Sutras are more palatable to Western audiences. They don’t require belief in a specific deity. They’re focused on the mind, discipline, and self-mastery. They don’t have mythological stories or devotional elements.
They’re easy to digest.
The Bhagavad Gita, on the other hand, is rooted in Hindu cosmology. Krishna is a deity. The text talks about karma, dharma, reincarnation. It’s spiritually rich—but also more complex to teach and market.
So the Sutras became the go-to. They align with Western psychology—quieting the mind, observing thought—and they support our self-help, hard-work culture.
But the Gita? The Gita requires surrender. It requires us to acknowledge yoga’s roots. It doesn’t live on a clean whiteboard in a yoga studio.
So let’s return to this idea that you want to practice the pure yoga—the unbroken chain of yoga.
What I’m learning, through both personal and academic research, is that this concept of an unbroken lineage… just isn’t real.
It’s a myth.
It’s something nice we might want to believe, but there’s no evidence to support that yoga has been passed down unchanged from ancient times to now.
Let’s take 20th-century yoga teachers like Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois.
Many scholars believe they included Sanskrit invocations and chants in their classes not necessarily because of historical accuracy—but to legitimize their methods.
It gave the appearance of continuity. Something that could be traced back to the Yoga Sutras. Something marketable to Western students.
Iyengar eventually began opening his classes with a Sanskrit chant to Patanjali—not because it was historically part of his practice from the start, but because it helped tie his asana system to ancient yoga texts.
Pattabhi Jois did something similar. He claimed verses from the early Vedas described the nine postures of Surya Namaskar, which are now central to his Ashtanga system.
A lot of this is documented in the research of Mark Singleton, whose work I recommend.
His findings are clear: there is no direct, unbroken lineage between pre-modern South Asian yoga systems and the postural yoga we practice today.
What we’re doing now is not a pure continuation of something static or ancient.
Yoga has always evolved. It’s a complex mix of rituals, philosophies, and cultural traditions—borrowed from multiple South Asian religious systems.
Even the word “yoga” itself originally referred to a warrior hitched to his chariot in battle. In that early usage, yoga was outward-focused—about conquest and military power.
Only later, around the time of the Upanishads, did the metaphor turn inward. Yoga became about inner mastery instead of battlefield victory.
But even then, that chariot-warrior metaphor stayed—like in the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna literally rides a chariot.
It’s the same image, just reinterpreted spiritually.
So yes, love the Yoga Sutras if they speak to you. I do.
But remember what they actually teach: that salvation is attained by meditating, detaching from the body, and realizing you are pure consciousness—separate from the physical.
That is, by definition, disassociation.
And some of you might be thinking, “Wait, Brett—you have a course based on the Yoga Sutras.”
Yes. My Yoga for Self-Mastery course is inspired by one particular line that stands outside the eight-limbed path. It describes “yoga in action.”
That’s the part I love. That’s what we unpack in the course.
The rest? Honestly, treat it like a meditation manual. Use it for that purpose. But don’t try to force it to be something it’s not.
Because when we do that—when we try to retrofit it into modern life—it becomes a distortion.
Brett:
So here’s a key difference with Tantra and the Tantric lineages.
Instead of saying, “Refine your consciousness so you can leave your body and merge with the infinite,” Tantra asks,
“How do we do that—and also stay embodied?”
That’s why I love the Tantric approach I teach in Uplifted™ Yoga. It honors both: union with the divine, and staying rooted in the body.
Now, Tantra itself is a tricky word. It can be translated in many ways. But the principle is the same: we don’t have to leave our bodies behind to be spiritual.
So let’s circle back to Yogi Bhajan. Some of you might be wondering about the lineage claims in Kundalini Yoga.
Yogi Bhajan said Kundalini Yoga was a secret, esoteric tradition passed down through Sikh masters in India.
But if we look at the work of scholars and academics, what we find is that his version of Kundalini Yoga was really a synthesis.
It blended Tantric ideas, Sikhism, and Western New Age thought. It wasn’t some untouched ancient lineage.
But again—that’s true for all modern yoga.
No one can claim a perfectly unbroken historical lineage. That’s just not how history works.
So when did yoga become so body-centric?
I talk about this in my book Yoga Life, and you should check out that chapter because I include photos that really show what I’m about to describe.
Things began to shift around the Industrial Revolution, starting in the mid-1700s.
As people left fields for factory jobs, they stopped moving as much. Gymnastics, stretching, and strength training started to gain popularity across Europe.
Indoor plumbing arrived in the 1840s. Electricity in the 1880s.
And suddenly, people weren’t just surviving—they were thriving. And they began taking an interest in their health.
So when you look at modern yoga poses, a lot of them resemble European fitness movements from the early 1900s.
I have this photo in my book—it looks exactly like a yoga class, but it’s actually a Swedish gymnastics group from 1900.
There was an American guy named Thomas Dwight. No one talks about him, but he wrote Anatomy of a Contortionist and was doing all the yoga poses we credit to Iyengar—50 years before Iyengar.
He just wasn’t calling them yoga.
Then there were these two incredible women—Mollie Bagot Stack and Adelia Wallace. In the 1930s, they created entire fitness systems for women based on stretching and breath.
Their published materials are nearly identical to modern yoga classes.
Let’s talk about Krishnamacharya—often called the father of modern yoga.
He saw this explosion of interest in fitness happening in Europe and decided to blend it with traditional Indian practices.
He pulled from the Hatha Yoga Pradipika, Indian martial arts, wrestling, and gymnastics. And then he combined that with spiritual ideas from classical yoga.
This was a huge pivot.
Krishnamacharya essentially rebranded yoga as a practice for health and well-being. He emphasized the physical aspects of the practice in a way that had never been done before.
He still included meditation and breath, but the big change was this emphasis on asana—as something good for your body, not just your soul.
He took yoga from something practiced only by select groups—monks, young priest boys, or elderly ascetics—and made it accessible. Something anyone could do.
And that’s the yoga most of us are practicing today.
Whether we realize it or not, we’re moving through a vision that Krishnamacharya created.
His three most famous students were:
- Pattabhi Jois
- B.K.S. Iyengar
- T.K.V. Desikachar (his son, and the teacher in my lineage)
Each of these men took Krishnamacharya’s yoga-fusion model and brought it to the West.
In the 1970s and 80s, it merged with America’s group fitness boom—think Jane Fonda era. Branded yoga classes took off. Studios opened. And yoga became a thing.
So here’s the bottom line:
Yoga has been in a state of continuous transformation for the last 150 years.
Krishnamacharya was instrumental in this shift, but even before him, yoga evolved with the times.
We see this in pre-modern texts. And we see it now.
In America, there was a desire to strip yoga from its South Asian roots, especially its connections to Hinduism.
So teachers and schools focused on texts like the Yoga Sutras, which have no mythological narrative and minimal religious content.
They elevated asana and ignored devotion.
Yoga became a secular sacred practice—an alternative to religion that still felt spiritual.
But if we stop there, we miss the depth.
Because yoga is not one thing. It’s not pure. It’s not unchanging. It’s not even fully definable.
It’s a living, breathing system that has always shifted to meet the needs of the people practicing it.
So if you’re practicing yoga today, you’re part of that evolution.
You are shaping what yoga is and will become.
Each of us—me included—is enhancing, adapting, and personalizing the practice based on our own needs, values, and interests.
And that’s okay. That’s beautiful.
One of my favorite scholars, Andrea Jain, says,
“Social contexts shape yoga systems.”
Yes. Yoga shifts depending on what society wants or needs at the time. That’s always been true.
So I encourage you to think about your own role in that.
What are you choosing to teach? What do you emphasize? What do you omit?
And if you’re someone who’s still searching for the “unbroken,” “pure,” “ancient” version of yoga—maybe take a moment to ask yourself:
Why?
That longing is valid. But let’s be real. That version doesn’t exist.
And when we cling to the idea of an unbroken lineage, we can miss out on the real magic of yoga: its adaptability, its capacity to meet us where we are.
I hope this podcast was thought-provoking, educational, and gave you some new things to noodle on.
If you loved this conversation, DM me on Instagram @LarkinYogaTV or leave a review. It means the world.
Please share this episode—especially with other yoga teachers—because these are the kinds of conversations we need to be having.
And if you want to go deeper, I have a course called The History of Yoga.
It’s a self-paced online training that counts toward continuing education hours, and it walks you through all the texts—not just the Yoga Sutras—in historical order, with context.
If you’re more interested in applying yoga to your everyday life, Yoga for Self-Mastery is my favorite course for that.
And make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast, because we’re continuing our journey through the Bhagavad Gita in upcoming episodes.
Make time for self-care.
Take care of you.
Until next time—thank you for listening. 🙏
