Hatha yoga who famously studied with the yogis and other mystics. Hatha yoga remained popular in rural India. Negative impression for the Hatha yogis continued during the British colonial rule era. According to Mark Singleton, this historical negativity and colonial antipathy likely motivated Swami Vivekananda to make an emphatic distinction between "merely physical exercises of Hatha yoga" and the "higher spiritual path of Raja yoga". This common disdain by the officials and intellectuals slowed the study and adoption of Hatha yoga. Modern hatha yoga, of the type seen in the West, has been greatly influenced by the school of Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, who
Hinduism karma, cows and caste"; and Bhakti or devotional Hinduism, where intense emotions are elaborately incorporated in the pursuit of the spiritual. Michaels distinguishes three Hindu religions and four forms of Hindu religiosity. The three Hindu religions are "Brahmanic-Sanskritic Hinduism", "folk religions and tribal religions", and "founded religions. The four forms of Hindu religiosity are the classical "karma-marga", jnana-marga, bhakti-marga, and "heroism", which is rooted in militaristic traditions, such as Ramaism and parts of political Hinduism. This is also called virya-marga. According to Michaels, one out of nine Hindu belongs by birth to one or both of the Brahmanic-Sanskritic Hinduism and