It is extremely heartening to note that from the year 2015, United Nations has decided to celebrate 21st June as the "International Day of Yoga". This is a welcome acknowledgement of the importance of Yoga, which is one of the greatest heritage transferred to the modern world by the ancient saints and sages.
World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing as the four basic elements of holistic health. Yoga is capable of ensuring holistic health of human beings in all these four aspects; hence, it was one of the primary contributors in making India a strong nation and teacher of the world (Jagadguru) in ancient times. These days, only the physical benefits of Yoga are being highlighted. Thus, there is an urgent need of establishing this extremely powerful ancient wisdom as a holistic life form that can ascertain success in each and every aspect of life; this is the way in which the ancient sages had presented it in front of entire humanity. The aim of Yoga is not just to cure diseases, but instead to protect the health and provide holistic development.
According to Bhagvad Gita - "Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam", which means Excellence in Actions is Yoga. Yoga propounds that this Excellence iscapable of ascertaining holistic growth in every aspect of life starting from physical exercise to the refinement of the inner-self and merging thepersonal consciousness (atma) with the Supreme Consciousness (parmatma). God is a collective representation of divine virtues; hence, Yoga gives us the ability to inculcate divine virtues within ourselves, and, undertake righteous and selfless actions. At the same time, Yoga ascertains a healthy and prosperous life, as well as development into a Supreme human being (mahamanav).
Both science & spirituality wholeheartedly support this unique wisdom of the ancient saints and sages. Today, Yoga is acknowledged and established in the entire world as an extremely evolved form of lifestyle. It is being utilized for promoting holistic health in personal life and ideal management in organizations.
Swami Vivekananda and Maharshi Arvind have described Yoga as the foundation of life. Similarly, Yugrishi Pandit Shriram Sharma Acharya himself lived a disciplined life in accordance with the Yogic principles and motivated crores of people to follow the pious and practical path of Yoga.
Due to the initiative of India, Yoga has gained international recognition.
Now, let us all take the responsibility of spreading it far and wide. Let us become the true followers of Yoga (yog-sadhak), prevent our energies from getting wasted in useless endeavors (kuyog), and employ these in righteous deeds (suyog). You are cordially invited for participating in the following programs of the International Day of Yoga: