Background of yoga: The history of yoga goes back at least five thousand years. The sage Patanjal codified it into the Yoga Sutras around 200 AD, which lays down prescriptions for gradually gaining physical and mental control and mastery over the personal self,until one's consciousness has intensified sufficiently to allow awareness of one's real Self, as distinct from one's feelings, thoughts and actions. Yoga concerns itself with the union of the individual self with the infinite universal self. Yoga is not a religion, although it is used to achieve spiritual enlightenment.