Lauding Colorado schools for offering yoga, Hindus urge all USA schools to launch yoga

Hindus have commended some Colorado elementary schools for introducing yoga and have urged all schools in USA to do the same for their pupils.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, suggested all elementary-middle-high schools of the nation to incorporate yoga in the lives of the students, making it part of the curriculum. Yoga was a mental and physical discipline whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed pointed out.

Many elementary schools across Colorado have reportedly introduced yoga themed recesses and brain breaks. “The Wellness Initiative” (TWI) headquartered in Boulder (Colorado) which  offers yoga classes for students, is partnering with 34 schools/institutions in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver and Jefferson counties.

 Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said that although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, yoga was a world heritage to be utilized by all. Yoga, referred as “a living fossil” and handed down from one guru to next, was based on an eightfold path to direct the practitioner from awareness of the external world to a focus on the inner.  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.

Rajan Zed added that besides other benefits, yoga might also help deal with the obesity crisis faced by the country. According to National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. Swami Vivekananda reportedly brought yoga to USA in 1893, and according to an estimate, about 16 million Americans, including many celebrities, now do yoga.

Colorado is known for its striking landscape of forests, deserts, mesas, plateaus, high plains, mountains, canyons and rivers. John Hickenlooper is Colorado Governor, Robert Hammond is Education Commissioner and Mara Rose is TWI Executive Director.