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Yoga. Where did it come from? Out of the blue in the 1970s, it made a splash on the radar screen of exercise when numerous Hollywood movie stars became adherents. Since then, it has rapidly become the most popular fitness program in the western world with an estimated 30 million practitioners. Yet its origins are mysterious. Archaeologists have discovered that yoga existed in several ancient civilizations such as India, Tibet, China and Mexico. That it spread among neighboring Asian countries is understandable, but how did it jump across the ocean to Central America? A mystery indeed!

Some say yoga dates back to 3000 B.C. because of references found in the oldest known book of the Indo-European language, the Rig-Veda. Others say that its origins begin much earlier, pointing to descriptions in Tibetan scrolls which are cited to be 40,000 years old. But despite this widespread and longtime existence of yoga, it wasn't organized into a system until 200 A.D. when an Indian sage named Patanjali documented it in a text entitled the Yoga Sutras. How yoga has evolved since then becomes a fascinating study.