Appeal to Heads of the States across the Globe

Introduction

Nouf Marwaai (Saudi Arabia)
Sara Lazar (USA)
Wim Hof (Netherlands)

What is common between the above three people from three different continents, with completely different backgrounds?

Let us dive a little deeper.

Nouf Marwaai

Nouf had been a sickly child and was diagnosed with systemic lupus at the age of 17. The doctors informed her parents that there was not much hope of her being cured. She read a Yoga book that her father had brought from his travels, and started practicing a few asanas. Over time as she continued practicing Yoga, her health improved, allowing her to graduate from college with high honors and she became a full time Yoga practitioner. In an interview, she said after starting Yoga and Ayurveda, she has been living without any medications and was successful even in defeating Cancer.

That turned around her life completely and today, she is a highly respected and reputed Yoga instructor in Saudi Arabia. She is the founder of the Arab Yoga Foundation in Saudi Arabia.

Nouf Marwaai has contributed to the legalization of Yoga and received official recognition for Yoga in Saudi Arabia.

‘I always wonder how I survived. I started practicing yoga and my whole life changed. I was diagnosed with cancer in 2014 but I was not scared because I had already battled with lupus and it had no treatment’ says Nouf.

‘So, cancer was not a monster for me because I have a tool in my hands called Yoga. Yoga is the need of the hour because it is a costless holistic wellness,’ she says.

Nouf sees Yoga as a liberating factor that rids one of mental disturbances (Chitta Vritti) and other psychological stress factors.

‘If the Individual is free from physical ailment, laziness and mental disturbances then they will create a healthy and free society,’ Nouf told Al Arabiya English.

Says Nouf in one of her interviews, ‘when my Yoga journey began, I was motivated by my determination to fight ill-health. In the year of 1998, I was not allowed to do a lot. I had excessive joint pains, muscle pains, body pains and much more due to Lupus.”

References:

Sara Lazar

During her graduate studies in molecular biology, an over-training injury derailed Dr. Sara Lazar’s aspirations to run the Boston Marathon. During her recovery, she discovered Yoga and, after a few classes, was surprised to find that she felt calmer, more compassionate and less reactive.

She wanted to understand why, and that quest ultimately altered the course of her career. For over 15 years, she and her team in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital have investigated how meditation affects the brain and were the first to show the connection between Meditation and cortical thickening in the brain. She has been researching to find out how to integrate Meditation into a busy life.

Dr. sara Lazar is an associate researcher in the Psychiatry Department at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as an assistant professor in psychology at Harvard Medical School. The focus of her research is to explore the neural mechanisms underlying the beneficial effects of Yoga and Meditation both in the clinical setting as well as in healthy individuals. Her work is about the neuroscience that supports Yoga therapy and mindfulness for the relief of chronic pain. She is a contributing author to Meditation and Psychotherapy and her research has been covered by numerous news outlets including The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, as well as WebMD.

References:

Wim Hof

Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand low temperatures. He previously held a Guinness World Record for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and he holds a record for a barefoot half marathon on ice and snow, climbing Mount Everest up 24,300 feet in shorts, climbing Mount Kilimanjaro up to Gilman’s point etc. He attributes these feats to his Wim Hof Method (WHM), a combination of frequent cold exposure, breathing techniques, Yoga and Meditation.

For more information, you may watch the video and read here:

All the above individuals discovered the hidden gems that Yoga has which were responsible for making a huge turn around in their lives, in fact completely changing the course of their lives for greater good of Humanity because they all are working hard to spread this knowledge to everyone who is willing to receive the same.

Then, Why Not Yoga for All?

In 2015, 21st June every year was declared as an International Yoga Day by the United Nations Organization in response to the appeal made by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to do so, which was co-sponsored by 177 countries and the resolution was passed by 193 countries by consensus, without any opposition.

Yoga had been already popular and was being practiced by a large number of people all over the world much before then. However, since 2015, it has become much more popular and a large number of people around the world have adopted it as part of their routine now.

This is one of the most invaluable and ancient gifts by India to the world.

And, amazingly, it’s at least 6000 years old.

(Ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoRwXMLsVis&t=70s)

Yoga is truly a philosophy of life and it means Union of Body, Mind and Spirit.

This word is derived from the Samskrit root “yuj” meaning “to join”, “to yoke” or “to unite”.

According to Yogic scriptures, the practice of Yoga leads to the union of individual consciousness with universal consciousness. And, according to modern researchers, everything in the universe is only a manifestation of the same quantum realm.

Today, most people across the world know the word Yoga and the general understanding is that it basically involves various kinds of difficult postures, which is only partially true.

However, actually that is just one of the most superficial aspects of this profound science that has an infinite potential of transforming the lives of people as well as our planet.

According to one of the schools of Yoga, followed by most today, called Ashtanga Yoga, meaning eight-limb Yoga, compiled by ancient sage Patanjali sometime in 4^th century; it involves eight limbs or steps such as Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dhyaan, Dharana, and Samadhi.

Yama involves restraints, Niyama involves observances, while asanas are postures, pranayama involves breathing exercises. Pratyahara means disassociation of one’s consciousness from sense organs. Dharana is akin to concentration, Dhyan is contemplation, or meditation and Samadhi is integration with the superconscious.

The most important aspect of this philosophy is that Yama enjoins practitioners to observe the following:

Ahimsa (Non-Violence)
Asteya (Non-Stealing)
Satya (Truthfulness)
Aparigraha (Non-Possession)
Brahmacharya (Control over sense organs)

Niyama guides the practitioners to observe the following:

Sauch (Cleanliness of Body and Mind)
Swadhyaya (Self-Study)
Santosh (Contentment)
Tapas (Penance)
Ishwar Pranidhan (Surrender to Divinity)

According to Patanjali, Yoga is complete control over one’s personality.

Medical research in recent years has uncovered many physical and mental benefits that Yoga offers, corroborating the experiences of millions of practitioners.

Once one starts practicing Yoga in true sense, he/she can potentially become a contented person and would usually not run after material happiness as much as we do now, but rather he/she would go after inner happiness.

Yoga is a philosophy that is easy to understand, is equally easy to apply and practice in day-to-day life.

It helps character building apart from inculcating all the several benefits that have profound effect on one’s life in so many different ways bringing harmony in all walks of life.

If you ponder over just these aspects of Yama and Niyama, the results for the growing children, for the youth, the families and the societies can be extraordinarily amazing. They have a huge potential to completely turn around the lives of people and that will have an immense benefit for the whole world.

Appeal to Heads of the States

I sincerely urge, Your Majesty, Hon. President/Prime Minister, to introduce from the first grade itself the teaching of Yoga to the children till they complete their school in your country.

This subject may be made mandatory for all the children in all the schools. The benefits that we as a society will receive could simply be mind-boggling and the saving of the resources and tax-payers’ money could also be astounding. And, the money saved can be diverted to where there is dire need such as saving and improving our environment, for providing education to every child, for improving economic conditions of the lower strata of the society, for encouraging growing healthy food, for improving access to clean water etc.

Today, even though the quality of life and standard of living has improved in many parts of the world, especially in the first world countries, as compared to many other countries, millions of people in those countries are struggling with several social as well as health related problems.

The most obvious and quicker benefits to the children, the families and the society could be:

Taking Yoga to our children can help in reducing the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) epidemic in our society, bullying in school, childhood obesity etc. and it can also help achieve better academic performance, saving our children from drug abuse and all that can ultimately lead one to live a better life, and as a bonus, can result in reduced violence in the society.
Practicing Yoga regularly can provide individuals with the physical, emotional, as well as spiritual benefits, and that can lead to improved energy, increased flexibility of our body, enhanced blood circulation, reduced stress and anxiety, reduced anger and frustration, less affliction with lifestyle diseases, improved quality of our sleep, better concentration, making us more optimistic, making us more compassionate to others etc.
All of these benefits can directly translate into saving marriages, reduced spending on drugs and health related issues, allowing us to save quality time for family, which would result in much healthier and happier societies. This can obviously lead to more caring and loving human beings.
Another good side effect of Yoga could result in better financial health as well for everyone including the Governments and the world at large.

All the above benefits are already experienced by hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, for which all the study findings and data are available in public domain.

Your Majesty is very humbly requested to take this appeal seriously and kindly consider implementing it in your country.

The world and this planet will forever be obliged to you, if you can do this.

Udit Shah

Community Advocate

Windsor, Canada

udit56@gmail.com

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.