Yoga is not a religion. The practice of Yoga does not require to subscribe to any particular belief or dogma as it is entireley based on direct experience. However, it is interesting to note that the words Yoga and religion share the same root : “Yug” in sanskrit and “religare” in latin both mean to join or to reunite. In Yoga, the ultimate goal is to reunite the individual soul, Atman, with the Universal Soul, Brahman. And all the yogic practices are actually a mean to achieve that goal. We can then find a few similarities between Yoga and religion, even though the methods employed are quite different in many ways.
