Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) on Friday (September 4), said that yoga was one of the six systems of orthodox Hindu philosophy, which traces its roots went back to around 2000 BC. Yoga never had any formal organisation and yoga practice had been handed down from one guru to the next.

 

Zed, also the president of Universal Society of Hinduism, states that yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures Upanishads and Bhagavad-Gita. The Bhagavad-Gita, one of the most popular Hindu scripture, is considered a comprehensive yoga-sastra (treatise on yoga).

 

Mahabharata, also an ancient Hindu scripture, said that one unconversant with yoga could never have happiness while Yogabija Upanishad pointed out that one became liberated from bondage only through yoga. “Why should such a liberation powerhouse be regulated?”, he asked.

 

Rajan Zed stressed that yoga was a mental and physical discipline by means of which the human-soul (jivatman) united with universal-soul (parmatman). Some sages had described yoga as the silencing of all mental transformations, which lead to the total realisation of the Supreme Self. Some had used yoga attempting to gain liberation by removing all sensory barriers. For Patanjali, author of the basic text, the Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.

 

Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche and regulating it was kind of a religious infringement, he added. About 16 million Americans, including many celebrities, are said to practice yoga.