The word Hindu comes from the word Indu, the culture that was born near the banks of the Indu which was also known as the Indu Sagara, the Indian Ocean. Sometimes, it is also referred by the region between the Himalayas and the Indian ocean. The culture that originated in this region is called Hindu or Sindhu culture. And the language developed in this region is called Hindi.
Hindu is a cultural and geographical identity not a religious identity. As most of the spiritual exploration including the development of Yoga happened in this region, it was identified as a Hindu way of life. The geographical identity of Hindu need to be separated from the religion Hinduism that is followed by majority of people in that region. A famous spiritual leader from India, Sadhguru, gave a good example to make this distinction. It was something like, if a discovery was made in the United States, and becomes famous, we call it an American invention. Even though the country might have a majority of people following Christianity, we don't call it a Christian discovery, we still call it an American discovery.
On similar lines, we might want to see the distinction that, even though Yoga and Hinduism geographically developed in the same region, they are not offshoots of each other. Needless to say, due to the regional overlap there are things that might be seen as overlapping philosophies in Hinduism and Yoga but they both deserve to be seen as two separate identities. And above all when talking about Yoga, we need to understand that it is not a religion but a way of looking at life.
[References]
http://isha.sadhguru.org/
https://www.wikipedia.org/
Image - http://hindu.over-blog.com/article-mahesh-the-tamsik-43468603.html
Hindu is a cultural and geographical identity not a religious identity. As most of the spiritual exploration including the development of Yoga happened in this region, it was identified as a Hindu way of life. The geographical identity of Hindu need to be separated from the religion Hinduism that is followed by majority of people in that region. A famous spiritual leader from India, Sadhguru, gave a good example to make this distinction. It was something like, if a discovery was made in the United States, and becomes famous, we call it an American invention. Even though the country might have a majority of people following Christianity, we don't call it a Christian discovery, we still call it an American discovery.
On similar lines, we might want to see the distinction that, even though Yoga and Hinduism geographically developed in the same region, they are not offshoots of each other. Needless to say, due to the regional overlap there are things that might be seen as overlapping philosophies in Hinduism and Yoga but they both deserve to be seen as two separate identities. And above all when talking about Yoga, we need to understand that it is not a religion but a way of looking at life.
[References]
http://isha.sadhguru.org/
https://www.wikipedia.org/
Image - http://hindu.over-blog.com/article-mahesh-the-tamsik-43468603.html
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