Yoga has become a worldwide phenomenon. Historically, Yoga is a practice with direct links to the Hindu faith and scriptures. However, the motivation behind today’s obsession with Yoga is more commercial exploitation than its original purpose as a spiritual practice and ingredient for a healthy lifestyle.

An article on Wikipedia explains Yoga’s relationship with Hindu religion:

Yoga is an Indian physical, mental, and spiritual practice or discipline. There is a broad variety of schools, practices and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism (including Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism) and Jainism. The best-known are Hatha yoga and Raja yoga….

Yoga gurus from India introduced yoga to the west, following the success of Swami Vivekananda in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the 1980s, yoga became popular as a system of physical exercise across the Western world. Yoga in Indian traditions, however, is more than physical exercise; it has a meditative and spiritual core.

The origins of Yoga have been speculated to date several thousand years to pre-Vedic Indian traditions. But, most likely Yoga developed around the sixth and fifth centuries BCE, in ancient India’s ascetic circles.

For a detailed analysis of the current state of Yoga as a worldwide phenomenon, see Yoga, Hinduism and Market, written by Dr. Javed Jamil.