Yoga’s Big Stretch from India to the U.S.

Question: What popular wellness trend was originally used to describe a yoke for livestock?

Answer: Yoga

These days, yoga and the United States are a bonded pair. In 2026 alone, an estimated 40 million Americans will find their flows and still their minds at more than 25,000 yoga studios across the country. Meanwhile, niche classes at breweries, animal shelters, and farms offer thousands more would-be American yogis the opportunity to try out cat and cow poses alongside actual cats and cows.

How did an ancient Sanskrit word that was originally used to describe a livestock yoke become a modern-day American cultural craze? The answer lies somewhere at the intersection of colonialism, feminism, and Hollywood Boulevard.

In the Beginning: Mind Over Movement

As a tool for expanding one’s consciousness and connecting with the divine, yoga has been a fixture of Indian spirituality since the fifth century CE. But its American story begins much later—in 1893, when a renowned Hindu monk named Swami Vivekananda arrived in Chicago to present the practice at the World’s Parliament of Religions.

Before leaving his native India, Vivekananda had traveled extensively throughout the subcontinent, witnessing the harsh conditions his countrymen endured under British rule. A social reformer and nationalist, Vivekananda was part of the “holy man” movement of the late nineteenth century, which saw Indian leaders shed the stylings of Britain and embrace more traditional costumes and customs. In Vivekananda’s view, yoga was an ideal representation of India’s belief system—and an inclusive, non-threatening philosophy that he could use to share his culture with the rest of the world.

The yoga Vivekananda presented to America was just that—a philosophy. Not the physical practice we know today. His lectures and writings emphasized Raja (king, sovereign) yoga, which focused on meditation, inner strength, and spiritual realization. It was yoga in its purist Sanskrit form: a “union” or “yoke” that joined individuals with the infinite source of creation, thus giving them power.

At the time, few Americans could agree about what yoga actually was. Some imagined it as a diet, others as breathing exercises, or even a form of magic. Vivekananda’s rational framing of yoga helped the nation find its center. Following his speech in Chicago, Vivekananda remained in the States and began establishing centers of learning. As Americans’ interest in yoga intensified, more Indian monks began making their way west, bringing their own unique yoga practices with them.

Early 1900s: Let’s Get Physical

The branch of yoga that incorporates the movement and poses we associate with the practice today is known as Hatha (force) yoga. When the postures (known as asanas) were introduced in the 12th century, their purpose was to enhance the spirituality of yoga by helping practitioners channel vital energy through the body.

While Hatha yoga had been extremely popular among certain Indian religious sects for hundreds of years, by the time Vivekananda introduced yoga to Chicago at end of the 19th century, it had developed a reputation as a fringe practice for itinerant yogis and was reviled by most Hindus.

But like Raja yoga before it, Hatha eventually benefited from a renewed sense of national pride: In the 1910s, independence-minded gurus began reviving Hatha yoga as a tool for improving physical fitness. As the thinking went, Hatha yoga would develop strong bodies that could break the shackles of colonial rule.

In 1919, a Hatha yoga guru known as Yogendra established The Yoga Institute of America in New York State, and a new yoga “movement” was born—and the timing couldn’t have been better. Hatha yoga’s debut on the American stage coincided with two key cultural shifts. The first was the growing popularity of exercise: From welcoming the first YMCA to U.S. soil in 1851, to inventing new sports like basketball (1891) and volleyball (1895), and participating in the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, Americans were discovering what it meant to get physical.

At the same time, women were pushing against restrictive social norms—demanding the vote, tearing off their corsets, and seeking new forms of physical expression. Hatha yoga’s emphasis on flexibility, deep breathwork, and body awareness aligned naturally with these liberation movements.

1930s-1950s: Yoga Heads for Hollywood

Prior to World War II, yoga was largely an east-of-the-Mississippi phenomenon—the property of Ivy League intellectuals and urban revolutionaries. But by the late 1930s, gurus had identified a new market for their practice: west coast bohemians and Hollywood A-listers.

In 1936, Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self Realization Fellowship, began establishing temples throughout Southern California. Ten years later, he published Autobiography of a Yogi, which details his spiritual philosophy and recounts his experiences teaching yoga to Americans. Over the years, the book garnered legions of fans, including George Harrison and Elvis Presley. In 1999, it was named one of the "100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century.”

Yogananda wasn’t the only guru who left the stars starstruck: After studying under the “father of modern yoga,” Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, in India for nearly a decade, Russian-born actress Indra Devi opened a yoga studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. In addition to a tool to combat anxiety, Devi promoted yoga as a health and beauty secret, even publishing a book of her own called Forever Young, Forever Healthy. Her yogic philosophy was a magnet for mid-century glitterati: Greta Garbo, Eva Gabor, and Yul Brenner were among her most famous students.

1960s-Present: The Spirit of Yoga Endures

In the 1960s, yoga experienced a return to philosophical form. By combining it with practices like Transcendental Meditation, which is used to achieve a higher state of consciousness, gurus like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi made yoga appealing to a generation of free-thinkers—most notably the Beatles, who made multiple trips to India to study with the Yogi.

Meanwhile, Swami Satchidananda’s Integral Yoga—which combines six classical yogic approaches in order to promote inner peace and joy—was so popular with young hippies that Satchidananda was invited to open the 1969 Woodstock Festival with a guided yoga session.

While yoga is no longer strictly spiritual, its association with mental well-being is what helped set it apart from other forms of exercise—including jogging and aerobics—that became popular during the fitness craze of the late 20^th century. To this day, 80% of American adults who practice yoga cite overall mind and body health and stress relief as reasons for doing so. And despite being a billion-dollar business, the American brand of yoga hasn’t lost touch with its revolutionary roots: 75% of all studios are independently owned and operated, and 70% of practitioners are women.

Yoga, which was born from a livestock yoke and grew up to describe a union with the divine has taken on a tertiary meaning in the United States: a connection with the past.

Notable Yogis

Long before yoga became a fixture of American culture, Transcendentalists like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson were embracing Hindu philosophy. In his 1841 essay, “Over-Soul,” Emerson promotes the same ideas of unity and power that Vivekananda would present as yoga in Chicago more than 50 years later. During his time at Walden Pond, Thoreau practiced prolonged meditation, adopted an ascetic diet, sought divine clarity through solitude, and wrote to a friend, “Depend upon it that rude and careless as I am, I would fain practice the yoga faithfully … To some extent, and at rare intervals, even I am a yogin.”

In the late 1800s, eccentric women’s rights advocate Ida Craddock scandalized a nation with her views on human sexuality. In addition to writing “obscene” bedroom manuals for married couples, Craddock performed an “offensive” belly dance act, and proclaimed that she was a Priestess and Pastor of the Church of Yoga.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was another one of the many famous fans of Autobiography of a Yogi. He first read it as a teenager and claimed to have returned to it every year of his life thereafter. Death could not even extinguish his passion for the tome: Attendees to his funeral were all given copies of the book following the service.

Spend a night in O.A.T.’s yoga and wellness camp in rural Rajasthan and attend a gentle yoga and meditation session during Heart of India.