Hindus have welcomed the First Congregational Church of Spencer (Iowa) for hosting free yoga classes open to the public.
Starting June 20, hour-long yoga classes will be offered on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays titled as Chair Yoga, Gentle Vinyasa Flow and Yoga foundations on a donation-only basis at the Church, whose tagline is “Come and worship with the Body of Christ”.
Church website announcement says “Yoga means to yoke the mind, body, and spirit” and adds that “All ages and abilities are welcome to come and move their body in this new fellowship opportunity”.
Reverend Wendy G. Van Tassell, Co-Pastor at the Church, was quoted in Spencer Daily Reporter: “I believe that God created our body with complexity, a wonderful complexity, a body, mind and soul, and yoga helps us. God blesses those who do yoga.” Reverend Tom Van Tassell is another Co-Pastor at this Church.
Welcoming the First Congregational Church of Spencer for hosting yoga classes, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, urged all the Iowa public schools to introduce multi-beneficial yoga programs in their curriculums.
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, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.
Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to a recently released “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.