Join the community of health crusaders

July 21st, 2006

The participants at the yoga camps organized at different places across the country in India are asked to take an oath that they will teach yoga to at least 100 people, thus spreading the practice for healthy living.

Many of us yoga practitioners and teachers are campaigning for the same.

One of our close associates, an elderly gentleman had had a harrowing time convincing his equally elderly fellow neighbours on the merits of yoga. The old gentlemen were regular gossip mongers at a neighborhood park which was also frequented by our yoga associate. I call him Mr Joy for anybody who comes in his contact goes back filled with joy.

He shared his frustration with me several times over for not having been able to convert his friends into yoga followers. His being upset was obvious for he always believed that his friends would be the first ones to follow his advice and become yoga practitioners. But sadly for him and for us too to an extent, he was unable to deliver a message of joy to his fellow beings. This was talked over a number of times and was almost forgotten.

Then one fine morning I saw Mr Joy in his beaming best. “Looks like you have been to a saloon for a facial, Mr Joy”, I asked. “Today I have had my first session of yoga with the diehard skeptics,” he announced to my utter surprise. How it happened finally? I was too eager to know.

Mr Joy narrated the saga of his success, which did not come through with his efforts but because of the sudden demise of one of their fittest and perhaps most affectionate fellow gossipers. The gentleman who had passed away had had the best medical indicators in the group, the most talkative. He was also the staunchest opponent of the “hocus pocus called yoga”. He had died of brain hemorrhage induced by sudden rise of his blood pressure which could not be controlled in time.

That’s exactly what Mr Joy was talking to him about just a few days before his unfortunate death in the presence the others who too had all the arguments against the traditional system of healing. Mr Joy wanted the gentleman who had passed away to take to yoga to treat his persistent high BP but has met with no success.

The death of the gentleman proved to be a blow to the arguments the oldies had held against yoga. The golden advice of Mr Joy had registered with the fellow oldies. They were too shaken on the death and all seemed to wish they had heard the good advise of Mr Joy. A week after the sad event they all came knocking at the door of Mr Joy. That’s when they had had their first session of yoga. They have become quite regular with their early morning practice since.

The latest student of yoga in our community and who is also the first one from across our frontiers is Chris, the webmaster of this site. I am quite sure, Chris will not only do good to his health and well being but is already doing a great service to the suffering humanity through his generous effort we see in the site. A physiologist turning a yogi is no mean feat. That fills my heart with joy.

I will be even happier if I can get his wife and their children to join our community of health crusaders.

Entry Filed under: Yoga