Yoga -- the first session

We (Yogita and I) had our very first Yoga session last Sunday, December 10th. We had a fairly reasonable turnout with five people in the audience. The learned of the society were well represented in the first Yoga session; however, the young and energetic were missing the joyous occasion of the union of mind, body and soul.

It is quite understandable that today’s youngsters are very busy for the whole week and 7am, Sunday morning is not the best time for this session. Many have complained that these sessions are too early in addition they are having school examinations going on. These are very legitimate concerns and have some relevance. However, we would like to give you a different perspective for each of these reasons and would request the kind consideration of youngsters with an open mind. Rest depending on their priorities in life, they can make a decision to come or not to come for tomorrow’s session:

1. Timing for session is too early: Early to bed and early to rise, makes a person healthy, wealthy and wise. This may be a very old saying; however, it has taken prominent meaning in today’s life. This is a known fact that the heightened pollution levels of Delhi are causing innumerable diseases like Asthma, cough and bronchitis. Early morning is the only time when the air is relatively fresh and free from these pollutants. Inhalation of this fresh air provides you oxygen, which in turn energizes your body (essentially making you healthy). Secondly, in this day and age, when everyone is trying to compete with hundred others for the fewest resources (catching a bus, train or getting to college etc), starting the day early gives you an edge over the late risers (helping you to become wealthy). Finally, the oxygen of the early morning helps in production of glucose, which is the food for your brain. The more quality food that the brain would get, the better would be the wisdom.

2. Examination Time: Having given numerous examinations in our life, we have concluded that the worst thing that you could do in your examination time is slog it out. It’s a well known fact that late nights during the time of examination only result in confusion and stress in the student’s mind. In this scenario, Yoga actually plays the role of a stress buster and helps you clear your mind and perform better in your examinations.

So, if the youngsters find these reasons convincing, we request them to be a part and a majority in our sessions.

Yogita and Tarun Bhalla (s/o Mrs. Kamal Bhalla and Mr. S.C. Bhalla)
FREE Yoga Session is held every Sunday morning 7 am at Arya Samaj, Moti Nagar.

First session on Sunday - 10/12/2006

We, Yogita and I, and our Mummy and Papa (Smt. Kamal Bhalla and Sh. S. C. Bhalla) were the first ones to be there at the Arya Samaj in Moti Nagar a few minutes before 7 am Sunday morning. We had to strictly adhere to the time so we started right on time even though the only people present there at 7 am were the four of us.

We began with Gayatri Mantra. Next we started with few warming up exercises to mobilize all the joints in our body. Then we introduced one aspect of Ashtang ("asht" = eight "ang" = limbs) Yoga, cleanliness or shauch, which is a part of Niyam "ang" of Ashtang. Since cleanliness is the foremost requirement to practice yoga it was important that we introduced this concept first. And, since all who were present knew about cleanliness very well we will discuss this concept once again when we will have more children amongst us.

Next was the time for asanas. We thought we should introduce asanas part of Surya Namaskar separately one by one before we do the entire Surya Namaskar. Meanwhile one more person joined us and he quickly picked up the asanas. To make the session more interactive and involve everyone present we did a group discussion on cleanliness and by this time we had total five participant apart from us two. Finally, we ended the session in Shanti Path.

We got many great suggestions for improvements such as:
1. Always begin with Gayatri Mantra and end with Shanti Path
2. For each asana, tell the benefits and contradictions. It is important for us to ask what ailment someone is suffering from and not ask them to do counter productive asanas.

आर्य समाज मोती नगर

योग - सुखी जीवन का मंत्र

इसी नाम से हम योग से पिरिचत हुए और वो भी अमरीका में। हमने भी कई य़ुवा लोगों की ही तरह यह कह कर नकार िदया िक हम पहले से योग के बारे में जानते है और यह आज के भाग दौङ वाले जीवन में इसकी उपयोिगता नही| एक अमरीकी िमत्र के बहुत कहने पर हमने योग को अपनाया और हमें आज हमारा िदन योग के िबना अधूरा सा लगता है| हमने योग में शारीिरक व आध्यात्िमक उन्नती का सार पाया जो िदन भर एक जुट हो कर काम करने की शिक्त देता है|

हम योग से बहुत पर्भािवत हुए और अब हम चाहते है िक भारत के सभी लोग इसे अपनाएं और अपने जीवन मे उन्नती पाएं| आर्य समाज मोती नगर में रिववार सुबह एक घंटे हम योग अभ्यास करेंगे| सभी लोग खासकर बच्चे इसमें भाग लेने के िलए आमंित्रत है| कुछ समय में ही आप ये सभी अनुभव करेंगे:
1. पढाई मेंं ज्यादा ध्यान
2. अच्छा स्वास्थ्य
3. सुदृढ मन
4. अच्छे संस्कार

हम दोनो अमरीका से उच्च िशक्षा प्राप्त करके आए है और हमें खुशी होगी अगर हम उच्च िशक्षा के बारे में आपके काम आ सकें| योग अभ्यास के बाद हम इस के बारे में बात करेंगे|

Yogita and Tarun Bhalla (s/o Mrs. Kamal Bhalla and Mr. S.C. Bhalla)

Details (these sessions are completely FREE):

Time: 7 to 8 am, every Sunday

Venue: Arya Samaj, Moti Nagar

Website: http://aryasamajyoga.blogspot.com

Email Id: aryasamaj.yoga@gmail.com

What is this blog about?

My wife (Yogita Bhardwaj) and I have moved back to India fairly recently after spending three years living in Seattle. Our life has transformed quite a bit after getting to know the Vedic principles and various Yoga techniques.

In some sense, we have had profound transformation in such a short period of time. We plan to give back to the society what we got from our heritage. These are all going to be experiments of truth and Yoga's efficacy in bringing about moral reform in today's world. That's what this blog is about -- we would maintain how successful we were and what are the learnings for other similar minded people.

Thanks,
Yogita and Tarun