Overwhelming majority of yoga instructors and practitioners in USA and Alabama were non-Hindus and they usually stayed non-Hindus sticking to their own respective faith traditions even after years of yoga practice; Hindu statesman Rajan Zed stated after an Alabama bill that would allow yoga in public schools ran into a roadblock on March 31.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged Alabama state senators to show maturity, wake-up to the needs of Alabama’s pupils and support introduction of multi-beneficial yoga in public schools ((banned since 1993).
Many Alabama public universities and city governments had already offered yoga and many Alabama churches had hosted yoga classes; reports suggest. Yoga was urgently needed to be incorporated in the lives of Alabama’s public-school students; Rajan Zed noted.
Zed pointed out that this yoga “prohibition” was clearly doing a disservice to Alabama’s K-12 public school students and denying them the valuable opportunities yoga provided. If yoga was rewarding in universities-cities-churches, why Alabama was keeping it away from its K-12 public school students; Zed wondered.
Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization; Rajan Zed indicated.
Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
According to a report of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Yoga is the most popular complementary health approach in the United States – used by 14.3% of the adult population, or 35.2 million people”. According to US National Institutes of Health; yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Rajan Zed emphasized.
Somebody needed to remind Alabama State Department of Education that we lived in 21st century now, Zed added.
Moreover, traditionally Hinduism was not into proselytizing. So, Alabamans should not to be scared of yoga at all; Rajan Zed said.