Our Prime Minister can singularly take credit for bringing Yoga under the arc lights on the world stage. He has been advocating its practice at every available forum, highlighting the benefits of practicing yoga. Leading from the front, he himself has been actively practicing various asanas with aplomb. And that makes the move for popularising this form of exercising more attractive and convincing.
As a result we now have more than 180 countries celebrating World Yoga Day this year on the 21st of June with the United Nations taking the lead. The media too has been effectively creating awareness on the benefits of performing yoga through advertisements and coverage of various events featuring celebrities. It is a fact that since ancient times, our saints and sages practiced yoga though in a subtle manner and now it has followers the world over.
Contrary to popular perception, yoga is not just a physical exercise where people bend or stretch their body while simultaneously controlling their breath—inhaling or exhaling in a slow manner. These are actually only the superficial aspects of this centuries old science of unfolding the infinite potentials of the human mind and soul. It is a rewarding experience with accompanying benefits of enhancing quality of life. Today it is not only the educational institutions which have taken the lead to include yoga in their curriculum, but many establishments too have been vying with one another to propagate this spiritual form of exercising
Taking advantage of the patronage yoga has been receiving from the government; many people camouflage their actions and motives using it as a convenient tool.
I have seen many of my colleagues sitting cross-legged on their chairs while working and when the issue of office decorum was raised, preferred to claim they were practising padmasana! Although I am not a strong votary of any form of exercising, I, like the numerous residents of my locality, practice pranayama—the formal practice of controlling the breath, which lies at the heart of yoga—daily while going to work and returning.
Last week a colleague of mine was pulled up for sleeping in the recreation room. When the Disciplinary Authority, pointing to the newspapers spread-out on the floor on which he was found lying, called for an explanation, was told that he was only practising shavasana or the corpse asana as it is popularly known. That sealed the fate of my colleague who was promptly booked with the superior remarking that the world knows for sure that the ‘dead’ do not snore!