Saturday, March 15, 2014

Festival of Yoga: Tribute to Indian Culture and Life Style

The state of Himachalpradesh organizes Yoga festival annually attracting thousands of Yoga enthusiasts and practitioners to Rishikesh.

The first thing that comes to one's mind when anyone says 'India,' is Yoga. Yoga, is a set of philosophic principles aiming to achieve unity of body and mind, through intense concentration of mind, and various body postures. This ancient science of body and mind found several enthusiasts in its followers in this modern era. Importantly recent discoveries that mindful yoga meditations could be used to treat several psychological and physical ailments made it even more popular across the world.

Several good books are written on Yoga to familiarize the practitioners to laymen about yoga. Patanjali's Yogasutra exists in a number of translations in English. The recent Sackler Gallery exhibit on Yoga is an excellent show case of Yoga, as well as informative.

India of course had been holding Yoga festivals in a number of cities, the pioneer of such festivals is Rishikesh. This year's yoga festival hosted between 1-4 March, 2014 had been attended by several Yoga gurus (teachers), students and individual practitioners from across the world. It is a time of yogic exuberance, and enthusiasm. The service of the yoga institutions, and practitioners in holding this festival and bringing yoga to the forefront should be applauded. After all it is the society that benefits from having healthy and happy individuals. Practicing yoga at least for 30 minutes everyday would provide immense benefit for everyone.

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