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As one friend of mine said this week, “I see yoga everywhere now.”

I’m glad she’s on the look out for yoga-related articles for me. And she’s right. Yoga is much more on the minds of Americans these days. From an article about proper positions in poses with a slideshow to an Indian guru’s rise to politics – yoga is in the news.

Part of that has included major publications carrying articles and columns about the discourse concerning yoga’s identity. Such a discussion can begin if the “y” in yoga should be capitalized. Is it a proper noun?

The Associated Press Stylebook, which governs such things in the publishing world, says no.

Some magazines and websites capitalize it, others do not.

This is all part of where yoga has been and where it is going, not only in its 100-plus-year history in the United States, but also around the world.

In a column on The Washington Post’s website, the Hindu American Foundation‘s Co-founder Aseem Shukla explains that as yoga has grown, Hinduism has not. Despite, yoga having it’s roots in Hinduism, he said.

“The severance of yoga from Hinduism disenfranchises millions of Hindu Americans from their spiritual heritage and a legacy in which they can take pride,” he wrote.

Earlier this year, the foundation released a position paper on this striving to explain that yoga is more than postures, called asanas.

Hindu gods, he said, cannot trademark their religion while people have taken its properties to trademark Transcendental Meditation and Aveda, which was born from ayurveda.

Two LA Yoga articles this month also delved into the issue.

One article provided the 37 definitions of “yoga” from the common, to join or put a yolk on horses, to a spy.

Another article was titled “Who owns Yoga?” and looked at how yoga teachers should educate students on the heritage of yoga. The article included an interview with Bikram Choudhury, founder of the Bikram style of yoga, who got a copyright for his style of yoga.

That move by Bikram sent India to create a Traditional Knowledge Digital Library. Such a library allows copyright offices to determine if something is original or has actually been practiced in India for centuries, according to a USA Today article.

But how did we get to this point to begin with. A few new books are looking at yoga and its roots in American society, according to The New York Times.

“The Great Oom: The Improbable Birth of Yoga in America” by Robert Love reveals the life of Pierre Bernard who encouraged Americans to practice hatha yoga during the turn of the last century and lived in New York with elephants.

In June, “The Subtle Body: The Story of Yoga in America,” by Stefanie Syman is scheduled to be released but I doubt it will douse the debate.