CELEBRATING FIRST INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY

INTERNATIONAL YOGA DAY 2015
MILLIONS CELEBRATE ANCIENT DISCIPLINE

www.ibtimes.com - Sunday marks the first annual International Yoga Day, part of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to promote the ancient Indian discipline. With yoga a symbol of national pride, the event saw thousands of people across the country taking part in practicing the discipline. 
Yoga, which has been practiced in the country for centuries, received global recognition after the United Nations declared June 21 as the International Yoga Day, a proposal that was initiated by Modi. In India, people pulled out their yoga mats and headed to different locations to celebrate the day. In the southern Indian city of Bangalore, the biggest gathering was in the Kanteerava Stadium, where nearly 5,000 students participated.

The Art of Living (AOL), a non-governmental organization engaged in stress-management and service initiatives, conducted several sessions across the city. “Yoga has got its stature finally, what it always deserved," Dinesh Ghodke, director of the AOL youth program, told International Business Times. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founded AOL in 1981 and the organization now operates globally in 152 countries and reached out to over 370 million people. 
Modi, who has be lauded by many for the yoga initiative, participated in an historic event in Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard in the Indian capital, New Delhi, on Sunday. Over 35,000 people gathered to practice yoga, and the government applied to Guinness World Records to acknowledge the event as the largest gathering of people practicing yoga ever.

The first International Day of Yoga is taking place today, so millions of yoga enthusiasts bent and twisted their bodies in complex postures across India and much of the world. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had lobbied the U.N. to declare June 21 as the global Yoga Day, spread his mat among rows of people, including his Cabinet members and foreign diplomats, at New Delhi's main thoroughfare that has been transformed into one sprawling exercise ground. "We are not only celebrating a day, but we are training the human mind to begin a new era of peace and harmony," Modi told participants. "This is a program for the benefit of mankind, for a tension-free world and to spread the message of harmony." Countries around the world are marking the occasion today. Thousands of people dressed in white sat on yellow mats under the Eiffel Tower, and similar events were held in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Beijing, Manila and other places. Around 30,000 people are expected to perform yoga at Times Square in New York. Coinciding with the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the festivities are expected to draw tens of thousands of people who will participate in yoga classes throughout the day at the Times Square, in an event that will be live-streamed around the world. In Taipei, capital city of Taiwan, more than 2,000 participants rolled out mats and performed 108 rounds of the "sun salutation" - the sequence of yoga poses often practiced at the beginning of a routine as the sun rises. Yoga is not only a method for self-realization and self-improvement as its main goal, it is also a natural medicine, Hatha and its variant, the so-called physical Yoga, is used to treat and prevent physical disorders, psychological and psychosomatic and to enhance health and quality of life.  Our spiritual teachers have taught us that the main goal of yoga is to be a method of self-realization and union with God; however, Hatha variant used to treat and prevent organic, psychological and psychosomatic disorders, and to increase health, personal improvement and quality of life. (Editor's note).

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

In the East, yoga is practiced as a way to reach the highest level of spiritual realization and becomes a real life form and philosophy that guides all actions, attitudes and thoughts of the person, but can also serve simply to fight stress, improve health or increase welfare. Many of the postures and techniques of Hatha yoga, which help control and heal the body and mind, are based on physiological principles of Ayurveda, traditional Indian medicine. In a broad sense yoga, which in Sanskrit means “union” is a set of physical practices, intellectual and breathing, accompanied by philosophical standards of lifestyle and designed to restore the vital balance of the body, from the point of physical, mental and spiritual, and achieve personal fulfillment.

Yoga Inbound:
“Hatha Yoga” - “Articles of Interest”
“The other side of Yoga”
Radha Charan d.d. - info@yogainbound.org
http://www.yogainbound.org/ws/salud-inbound
http://www.yogainbound.org/ws/hatha-yoga/30-articulos-interes/295-la-otra-cara-del-yoga

Published by dasavatara das - “Vedic Views on World News”
http://www.vedicviews-worldnews.blogspot.com.ar/