I was reviewing a course for a nursing program, and they were talking about "self care," referencing yoga. They said, "yoga is translated as the union of the mind, spirit and body." In looking it up, I found this in Wikipedia: "The Sanskrit word yoga has the literal meaning of 'yoke', from a root yuj meaning 'to join', 'to unite', or 'to attach'."

Do you agree that they were pushing the envelope with that definition?

योग yoga means many things including "the act of yoking; union; self-concentration, abstract meditation and mental abstraction practised as a system... its chief aim being to teach the means by which the human spirit may attain complete union with Īśvara or the Supreme Spirit" (from Monier-Williams' Sanskrit-English Dictionary). It is cognate with yoke too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

They said, "yoga is translated as the union of the mind, spirit and body."

While, yoga literally means 'yoke; joining'. A yoke joins together two oxen to a cart, the extended meaning is usually 'the joining of the body (matter) with soul'. It's not much of a stretch to equate 'soul' with 'mind'. I was just noticing the other day that some ancient cultures thought the seat of thought was not the brain, but the heart. In Ancient Greek, the soul was identified with 'breath'.

A similar connection is found in the King James bible at Genesis 2:7:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, & breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a liuing soule.

Kinda messes with the "life at conception" idea of the anti-abortion folks, but it does explain the word, "human." Latin, humus

Okay. So it's an extension of the meaning, but not a literal translation. Makes sense.

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Originally posted by Kalleh:
Okay. So it's an extension of the meaning, but not a literal translation. Makes sense.

It's not the "main" meaning, but it is one of the ways the word is translated, according to Monier-Williams.