International Yoga Day was celebrated with great enthusiasm and charm at Sun Street Community Hall in Reading under the aegis of the Pran Yoga group and Greater Reading Nepalese Community Association (GRNCA) on Sunday.

International Yoga day is being celebrated across the World for the last 3 years recognising its extremely important health benefits and worldwide popularity after the United Nations proclaimed 21 June as the International Day of Yoga. This year’s Yoga day theme was ‘Yoga for Health.’

Yoga is an ancient physical, mental and spiritual practice that originated from Hinduism more than 5,000 years ago. The word ‘yoga’ is a Sanskrit word which means to join or unite, symbolizing the union of body, mind and consciousness.

Dozens of Nepalese including children and people of other community attended the Yoga session, which included sun salutation, yogic jogging, pranayama (breathing exercises) micro exercises, asana, postures and chanting of mantras.

Yoga class is regularly being run every Sunday from 7 to 9 am in the community hall for the last 7 years. Chiranjibi Paudyal, GRNCA chairman Krishna Neupane and Roopan Bheekha conducted the yoga class and shed light on the importance of yoga in our health. Mr Neupane also spoke of the importance of food and exercise to be healthy.

Coordinator of the Yoga day celebration of the GRNCA and vice chairman Nabraj Neupane spoke of the importance of yoga day urging for maximum participation on regular basis, while General Secretary Omkar Adhikari extended vote of thanks at the end of the programme. Healthy foods including sprout moongs, fruits and drinks was also served to the participants of the Yoga.

International Yoga day was celebrated across the world including the UK,where mega yoga events were organised in the tourist attractions places such as  the London Eye and Trafalgar Square among others where thousands of Yoga enthusiasts attended the event. Yoga has become very popular across the globe especially in the west, where yoga classes are run in almost every temple,town and city.

On June 21 this year, Yoga day was celebrated across the globe: from Japan to Jamaica, Russia to Ruanda, China’s Great Wall to Britain’s London Eye, New York to Siberia, performing different yoga postures and chanting mantras. More than 51,000 people gathered in one place to do yoga in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state in India and Indian soldiers did yoga on the day at an altitude of 18,000 feet and -25°C in Kashmir.