Once, a famous dancer improvised a few instinctive movements. These movements however were extremely sophisticated, thanks to their virtuosity, and as a result, stunning. This body language was by no means ballet, but had undeniably been inspired by dance.
The breathtaking beauty of this technique moved those who witnessed its expressive nature. They asked the dancer to teach them his art. He did so. In the beginning the method had no name. It was something spontaneous which came from within, and which was echoed only in the hearts of those who had been born with the good fortune of having a more refined sensitivity.
The years went by, and the great dancer managed to impart a large part of his knowledge. Until one day, a long time afterward, the Master passed to the invisible plains. His art on the other hand did not die. The most loyal disciples preserved it intact and assumed the mission of passing it on. The pupils of this new generation understood the importance of also becoming instructors and not to modify or alter any of the teachings of the ingenious first mentor.
At some point in history this art gained the name integrity, integration, union: in Sanskrit: Yôga! Its founder joined the ranks of mythology with the name Shiva and with the title Natarája, king of the dancers. These facts occurred more than five thousand years ago in the northwest of India, in the Indus valley, which was inhabited by the Dravidian people. And so, let us study the origins of Yôga of this period and find its original proposal so that we can identify authentic teaching and distinguish it from others, which were either compromised due to consumerism or to the inference of incompatible foreign forms. Just as Yôga this admirable people also developed Tantra and Sámkhya. Their civilisation, one of the most advanced in ancient history, was lost and buried for thousands of years, until the end of the nineteenth century when archaeologists found evidence of their existence and started to excavate two important archaeological sites where they discovered the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro respectively.
After this discovery, there were even more. Today there are thousands of sites distributed over an area larger than Egypt and Mesopotamia. They were impressed with what they found. Cities with planned urban areas. Instead of tortuous alleys they found avenues up to forty-six feet wide, cutting through the city in the directions north south and east west. Between them pedestrian streets, upon which ox carts did not pass. On these streets the houses of the middle class had two floors, atriums, indoor sanitation and running water! Don’t forget that we are talking of a civilisation that flourished three thousand years before Christ. It goes on. Streetlights, and covered sewers, children’s toys of which there were cars whose wheels turned, jointed cows heads and dolls with hair implants, there were also imposing barns which had an ingenious ventilation system and elevated platforms to facilitate the loading and unloading of carts.
