Missouri Governor​ urged ​to sign yoga tax exemption

Hindus are urging Missouri Governor Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon to sign the measure exempting yoga classes from sales tax, already reportedly passed by Missouri lawmakers.

Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, commending the Missouri legislature for passing the yoga classes sales tax exemption bill, said that 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, indicated 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, Rajan Zed added.

There are about three million Hindus in USA.