Hindus critical of yoga ban in Sweden school

Hindus have condemned reported putting a stop to yoga class in a Rydaholm school in southern Sweden and remarking that yoga is in league with the devil.

Calling it a “step in the backward direction”, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, stressed that instead of ban, Sweden should introduce yoga in all the schools of the country.

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.

As many Swedes would love to have yoga in schools, Sweden should hold a referendum whether to offer yoga classes in schools, Rajan Zed pointed out, and urged King Carl XVI Gustaf and Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to look into it.

Yoga class at Rydaholm school was reportedly stopped recently for “religious” reasons. Rydaholm is a locality situated in Varnamo Municipality in Jonkoping County of Sweden.