Wonderful to see Modi propagating yoga on world stage, says SRF chief
| Date :21-Oct-2019 |
By Namita Tewari
NEW DELHI :
YOGA is India’s true gift to the world that can empower people to tap their full potential and it is a wonderful step by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to further propagate the idea of yoga on the world stage, according to SRF President Swami Chidananda Giri. The US-based Self Realisation Fellowship (SRF) and India-headquartered Yogoda Satsanga Society (YSS) were founded by Parmahansa Yogananda, known for his book ‘Autography of a Yogi’.
Emphasising that yoga is not just a set of physical exercises, Swami Chidananda Giri said it is one of the most powerful tools to battle complexities of modern life that could usher in inner peace. “Prime Minister Modi is to be applauded for bringing further the idea of yoga onto the world stage...Because he chose what India’s unique and most precious gift to the world could have ever been,” Swami Chidananda Giri told PTI in an interview here. “... It is so beautiful that as a representative of India he is putting first and foremost what India’s true gift to the world is. That is wonderful,” he said.
On the 100th birth anniversary of YSS in 2017, Modi had termed Parmahansa Yogananda as one of the greatest Yogi whose life and work demonstrated to the world the tremendous value of India’s spirituality. Unlike mass popularisation of the concept that yoga is a physical exercise, which is just a superficial understanding, Swami Chidananda Giri emphasised that yoga is a union of the body and the soul. Ruing about the various happenings in the society, Swami Chidananda said lack of a healthy source of self-esteem in the modern world was fast spreading like an “undiagnosed epidemic” with today’s youth turning to social media for self validation and craving for identity in how many of their posts have been liked or seen.