Hindus welcome yoga space at Vancouver Airport

Hindus have applauded launching of a pilot program to test a tranquil yoga space for travelers at Vancouver International Airport (YVR), a major international airport in Canada, calling it a step in the positive direction.

 

This program will offer departing passengers to a Canadian destination a designated space free of charge to engage in a self-guided yoga practice prior to boarding from July 15 to August 26 on Fridays between ten am to two pm. Passengers can use the space to practice their own yoga flow or meditation and a yoga instructor will be on hand to suggest poses that are particularly beneficial during travel. Mats are provided.

 

Welcoming this YVR gesture, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, urged the YVR authorities to create a “permanent yoga space” available during all airport hours 365 days a year to all passengers, employees, visitors and vendors if they were serious to be a “world-class” airport, “enhance the passenger experience” and help reduce their stress levels.

 

Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, also urged all Canadian commercial airports to provide yoga facilities as many USA and world airports now did offer yoga spaces.

 

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, Rajan Zed noted.

 

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, Rajan Zed added.

 

Launched in 1931, YVR, managed by not-for-profit Vancouver Airport Authority, is Canada’s second busiest airport which served over 20 million passengers in 2015 connecting to over 120 non-stop destinations worldwide. Mary Jordan and Craig Richmond are Board Chair and President respectively of YVR, voted Best Airport in North America for the seventh consecutive year in the 2016, whose Vision is “A world-class sustainable gateway between Asia and the Americas”.