Durban celebrates Yoga Day
"Plans are underway to ensure that Yoga is introduced in schools."
COMMONLY referred to as Yoga Day, hundreds of people from all walks of life gathered at the Durban Amphitheatre on Sunday morning to participate in the International Day of Yoga celebrations.
The day was unanimously declared an international day for yoga by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 and it is celebrated annually on 21 June. Yoga is a physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated in India. With the fast-paced, stressful lives that most people experience in developed and developing countries, the pursuit for alternate healing and therapy for non-communicable diseases has become imperative.
Among the dignitaries at the Yoga Day event in Durban was the Provincial Treasury MEC, Ravi Pillay, and the newly appointed acting eThekwini Mayor Fawzia Peer. Addressing the crowd, Peer said plans were underway to ensure that yoga is introduced in schools.
“To uplift the quality of education and learners in our schools, the Sivananda Foundation is busy working on introducing yoga into our schools. Many schools around the world, have added yoga on their school program. Most schools use the academic performance as a primary criteria fro students’ success and unfortunately many students struggle to achieve or maintain adequate grades which can lead them to disengage or dropout but research suggests that yoga might improve and alleviate academic stress,” said Peer.
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Yoga is not just about working out. It’s about a healthy lifestyle. The practice of yoga allows students to be still in a world consumed with chaos. Peace and tranquility achieved through focused training appeals to everyone. With the resolution for an International Yoga Day, more people will become aware of the tenets of yoga and will be encouraged to follow a yogic lifestyle, a life that is healthy, humble and devout,” said Ishwar Ramlutchman, President of the Sivananda World Peace Foundation.
Urging people to participate and reap the benefits of practicing yoga, Dr Chaitanya Prakash Yogi, director of the Swami Vivekanda Cultural Centre said: “The capacity to see unity, harmony and complementarities among all contradictions, odds, adversities, oppositions, obstacles, restrictions, discrimination, destitute and disparities is the ‘knowledge’. Yoga is one of the ways to attain and experience this knowledge from within and to live it with the loudness of the external world.”
The theme for the 2019 International Yoga Day is Climate Action. The Yog Nirtyam, a celebration of the spirit of yoga through Indian Classical dance, in association with senior danseuse Manesh Maharaj, Shanese Naicker and Verushka Pillay will take place at Mitchell Park on 22 June.
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