Feeling tired? Under too much stress? No time to exercise?

    Well, you may want to try yoga. It's what more and more people have been turning to to ease the troubles of modern life. Practically unheard of in the West until 50 years ago, yoga has become one of the most popular health trends around.

    Yoga has become so popular in recent years; it's easy to overlook the fact that it is actually one of humankind's oldest activities. Scholars think that yoga grew out of the methods used by shamans of the Indus Valley, more than 5,000 years ago.

    Shamans were the holy men of early human civilization. Their role in society was to communicate with the spirit world to find solutions to problems facing their people. Over time, these shamans developed a system of mental and physical exercises to expand their consciousness, and thereby give a new perspective on the problems of daily life. These exercises formed the foundation of modern yoga.

    For thousands of years yoga was practiced mainly in India. The exercises of yoga were incorporated into three of the Indian religions: Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Technically, yoga is not a religion; it is a method that can be used by anyone to pursue their own religious （or non-religious） goals. Siddhartha, the founder of Buddhism, practiced yogic meditation, and meditation is still a central part of Buddhism today.

    Yoga was practically unknown to the West until the 1960s, when popular culture began to show an interest in Eastern religions. Pop culture icons, such as the Beatles, helped popularize yoga by showing interest in yogic meditation. People began to look at yoga as a way to find peace of mind in a world that was anything but peaceful.

    Since the 1960s yoga's popularity has grown steadily. Nowadays, Westerners practice all kinds of yoga. There is Bikram, or "hot Yoga", done in rooms heated to over 40 degrees Centigrade. There is baby yoga in which infants copy the stretching poses of their mothers. There are even yoga classes for people in their 70s!

    In fact, there are so many people who want to learn yoga that yoga schools across the United States are having difficulty keeping up with the demand. Judging by its popularity, yoga is as useful for solving the problems of today as it was for solving the problems 5,000 years ago.

    中文：

    累了嗎？壓力太大嗎？沒空運(yùn)動(dòng)？那么，你也許想試試瑜珈。已經(jīng)有越來越多的人求助瑜珈來舒緩現(xiàn)代生活的煩惱。五十年前在西方幾乎還沒有人聽說過瑜珈，可是現(xiàn)在它已經(jīng)成為世界各地最流行的健康風(fēng)潮之一。

    近年來瑜珈如此受歡迎，很容易讓人忽略一個(gè)事實(shí)：瑜珈其實(shí)是人類最古老的活動(dòng)之一。學(xué)者認(rèn)為瑜珈發(fā)源自五千多年前印度河谷里巫師所采用的做法。

    巫師是早期人類文明中的圣者。他們?cè)谏鐣?huì)上的角色就是要跟神靈世界溝通，為人們面臨的困難尋求解決之道。隨著時(shí)間的更迭，這些巫師發(fā)展出一套心理與生理的運(yùn)動(dòng)系統(tǒng)來拓展他們的知覺，因而能從新的角度看待日常生活中的問題。這些運(yùn)動(dòng)成為現(xiàn)代瑜珈的基礎(chǔ)。

    幾千年來，瑜珈主要在印度盛行。瑜珈運(yùn)動(dòng)被整合到印度三大宗教中：印度教、耆那教以及佛教。嚴(yán)格說來瑜珈并不是宗教；它是任何人都可以使用的方法，用來追求個(gè)人的宗教（或非宗教）目標(biāo)。佛教創(chuàng)始者悉達(dá)多（釋迦牟尼的本名）,就做過瑜珈打坐，而打坐直到現(xiàn)在依然是佛教的重要部分。

    西方世界對(duì)瑜珈幾乎是一無所知，直到20世紀(jì)60年代才改變，當(dāng)時(shí)的流行文化開始對(duì)東方宗教產(chǎn)生興趣。流行文化偶像例如披頭士對(duì)瑜珈打坐表現(xiàn)出興趣，這有助于瑜珈的推廣。人們開始將瑜珈看作一種在這個(gè)絕對(duì)不平靜的世界里尋求內(nèi)心平靜的方式。

    20世紀(jì)60年代以來，瑜伽受歡迎的程度一直在穩(wěn)定增長。現(xiàn)在，西方人做各種各樣的瑜珈。有彼克蘭瑜珈，又稱"熱瑜珈",要在加熱到攝氏四十度以上的房間里做。也有嬰兒瑜珈，小寶寶模仿母親做伸展運(yùn)動(dòng)。甚至還有專為七十多歲銀發(fā)族開設(shè)的瑜珈課程！

    事實(shí)上，美國有太多人想學(xué)瑜珈，以至于整個(gè)美國各地的瑜珈學(xué)校供不應(yīng)求。從瑜珈風(fēng)行的程度來看，無論是拿來解決現(xiàn)代人的問題或是解決五千年以前的問題，瑜珈一樣管用。