Hindus welcome Australia’s City of Gosnells for promoting yoga to manage stress

2024-11-22 09:27:00 Religion

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Hindus have commended City of Gosnells in Western Australia for reportedly promoting yoga.

Gosnells? Mayor Glenn Dewhurst recently ?joined children at the City?s Leisure World for a Junior Yoga session, saying it was important for people of all ages to find ways to manage stress and yoga was a great option, particularly for kids?, according to a Media Release of the City.

Yoga is designed to build physical strength and flexibility, improve concentration and confidence and create mental awareness and a positive self-image, release points out.

City is offering separate weekly ?Kids Yoga? sessions for children aged six to nine years and for children aged 10 to 14 years. Junior Gym Yoga classes offered by the City claim to be ?designed to aid kids by teaching them how to move their bodies in a healthy way, assist in managing stress through breathing exercises, creating awareness, meditation and concentration as well as increasing their confidence and positive self-image?.

?Chair Yoga? sessions for seniors are also offered. ?Yoga has been shown to increase strength and balance and helps reduce the risk of falls?, announcement notes. City also provides sponsorship for community programs such as a yoga program for seniors.

Meanwhile, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, called Gosnells? reported yoga promotion ?a step in the positive direction?. Zed urged all Australian cities to provide adequate yoga facilities and opportunities for their residents so that they could explore various benefits yoga offered.

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

Rajan Zed 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.

According to US 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 a ?2016 Yoga in America Study?, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.

City of Gosnells, a Perth suburb; has ?dog exercise areas?, ?ghost walks?, Ellis Brook Valley (showcasing over 500 species of wildflowers); and was reportedly listed among the worst suburbs for break-ins. Ian Cowie is CEO of Gosnells, which has been a gazetted local government area since 1907.