Hindus have welcomed Alabama Governor Kay Ivey reportedly signing a bill today allowing yoga in Alabama public schools (banned since 1993); saying that although it came with lot of unnecessary and impertinent restrictions, it was still good for the overall well-being of Alabamans.
Distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, thanked Ivey and Alabama legislature for waking-up to the needs of Alabama’s pupils, and bringing Alabama into the 21st century at par with rest of the nation. Multi-beneficial yoga was urgently needed to be incorporated in the lives of Alabama’s public-school students.
Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, indicated that Alabamans should not to be scared of yoga at all. Overwhelming majority of yoga instructors and practitioners in USA and Alabama were non-Hindus and they usually stayed non-Hindus sticking to their own respective faith traditions even after years of yoga practice. Moreover, traditionally Hinduism was not into proselytizing.
Rajan Zed further said that yoga “prohibition” was clearly doing a disservice to Alabama’s K-12 public school students and denying them the valuable opportunities yoga provided.
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. Yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed emphasized.