Cherishing Yoga With The World

Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.
- Bhagavad geeta
Yoga has always been there with us since ages. It is a well-remembered bestowal from India's ancient tradition. So, when on 21st June, we celebrate the world yoga day, it makes me remember the prolonged wandering of yoga.
The outset of yoga have been said to be unquestionably very senile. Shiva, a mythological character of India’s rich figmentation is said to be the begetter of this age old folklore. He is also known as Adiyogi, which means the first yogi, the first person to manifest the seeds of yoga in the world.
The legend goes about saying that about 15,000 years ago, a man appeared in the foothills of the northern Himalayas, where he sat for months, absolutely still even without a slight movement. He was a nine feet tall, well-built man. At first he attracted a lot of attention as people gathered in hope of some miracle but soon every one lost their interest except seven of them. These seven tailed the man and requested him to share with them what he knew. The man denied but they remained adamant on learning it. Finally, he agreed. The man is now known as Shiva and the 7 men are called as the "saptarishis" - The Seven Sages, who propagated yoga across the world in gratitude towards their preceptor. These stories remain uncertain due to oral transmission; however during the excavation of Indus-valley civilisation, various coins were found wherein Shiva is seen sitting in yogic postures. The science of yoga has been resilient for millenniums and this comes out to be apparent as the  word, “yoga” finds mention in the sacred and the earliest written text of Rig Veda.
In the year 1893, when Swami Vivekananda represented India in the parliament of World’s Religions, he did give a clear insight of India’s tradition which included secularism and yoga. He lured the crowd into recognising the godsend blessing in the form of Yoga. He was confident that if the western world welcomes yoga then the whole world will follow its footsteps. This is what had been the endeavour of our honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi who, in the year 2014, proposed the idea of rejoicing the world yoga day on 21st June in the United Nations, which gladly accepted the proposal with 177 of its member states voting in favour of it, which so far had been the highest number of majority gained in the UN.
Today, more than 180 countries celebrate and participate in what is termed as the international yoga day. It is an ancient science which with its appropriate inner technologies makes it possible for a human being to function at his optimum level with a comprehensive sense of health opening up human’s physical, psychological and spiritual possibilities.