California schools urged to launch yoga after appeals court ruling

After a California appeals court ruled on April three regarding yoga classes in a school district, Hindus are urging all the California schools, public as well as private, to launch yoga for students.

Calling introducing yoga a “step in the positive direction”, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, suggested all California schools to incorporate yoga in the lives of the students. 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, Zed pointed out.

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, 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.

If Encinitas Union School District could successfully teach yoga, why not other California school districts could do it similarly, Rajan Zed asked.

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. According to an estimate, about 21 million Americans, including many celebrities, now practice yoga. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.