Hindus have commended Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) Board of Trustees in California for reportedly approving funding a health and wellness program which includes yoga.
Calling it a step in the positive direction, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, applauded EUSD Trustees for coming forward and providing an opportunity to students to avail the multiple benefits yoga offered.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, urged California Governor Edmund Gerald Brown Jr., California State Board of Education President Dr. Michael Kirst and California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson; to work towards formally introducing yoga as a part of curriculum in all the public schools of the state, thus incorporating highly beneficial yoga in the lives of California’s 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, Rajan Zed pointed out.
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 recently released “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, Rajan Zed added.
Reports suggest that EUSD Board of Trustees, in its June 21 meeting, approved a plan to fund a health and wellness program in the next academic year which will include yoga instruction.
It is claimed that all nine EUSD schools including the District Office have received local, state and national award recognition for their innovative programs and outstanding student achievement, including National Blue Ribbon status for four of its schools; and all nine of the schools have been named California Distinguished Schools. Emily Andrade is Trustees President while Dr. Timothy Baird is Superintendent of EUSD, where first one room school house was built in 1883.
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