> Yet he presents it as if he "discovered" it. This is pure intellectual dishonesty.
You might want to contemplate your accusatory nature on this topic as part of your practice.
Yes it is possible but highly unlikely. He himself claims practising yoga for years. How do you justify him never coming across eight parts of Yoga? Moreover on his website he admits similarities with Buddhist meditation but reluctantly[1] and justifies by claiming of "stripping the religious aspects" just like you.
so as far as religious trappings are concerned, Hinduism and Buddhism aren't religions in Abrahmic sense. There is no creed to be followed, there are no prophets, and you don't have to follow commandments to achieve eternal bliss in after life. Buddhism and Jainism don't even have gods per say.
Word Dharma comes from Sanskrit root dhri, which means maintains the stability and harmony of self, society, environment, and universe. This means there are no prohibitions but only principles to be followed to maintain the balance. Depending upon the situation same principle might suggest diametrically opposite actions.
> YAMA – Moral disciplines
> NIYAMA – Positive duties
You also say there's no creed, and then talk about "bliss in after life". That's a creed.
I get into this with Catholics sometimes where they think having special vocabulary and a big bag of trivia makes one thing not another. They tell you they don't worship Mary, but if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...
Viewed from the outside, Hinduism is just as much a religion as any of the Abrahamic ones.
Yoga teaches this blissful existence so some parts of these teaching deal with physical aspects like asanas(exercises) and pranayana(breathing). However, central ideas of Yoga is called निष्काम कर्म or unattached action which simply put means hell or high water, you should stick to your duties and perform them without caring for the results. No wonder many scholars like Beethoven, Eliot, Emerson, Oppenheimer to name a few got inspired by its philosophy.[1][2]
[1] https://www.yogajournal.com/yoga-101/first-book-yoga
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/nov/18/classicalmusic...