Yoga cannot be identified with any religion: Rajnath

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today said yoga cannot be identified with any religion and people who think so lack integrity, coordination and balance.
The Minister said yoga has a universal appeal and more than 170 countries, including 66 Muslim nations, had backed the resolution on the International Yoga Day in the United Nations General Assembly.
"Sometimes when people talk about yoga, they say it is related to a religion. How can it be? 66 Islamic countries of world's largest Assembly of United Nations supported it, besides those with Christians, Jews and Parsis," Singh said, adding, this was the first time in the history of the UN that a resolution received such widespread support.

This success we owe to the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said at the concluding ceremony of International Yoga Festival organized in the run-up to the second International Yoga Day.
Asserting that yoga cuts across all religions, he said its practice helps in achieving coordination, balance and unity between the body, mind, intellect and soul.
"It has only cultural identity and not religious. People who think so, lack coordination, balance and integrity.

"Yoga is an invaluable cultural heritage of India and is now being practiced in all continents. This leads to a balanced human being which forms the basis of a balanced society, leading eventually to a balance in the natural world and oneness with its creator," he said.

This year, the International Yoga Day event will be held in Chandigarh on June 21 as the government plans a bigger programme than the maiden one at Rajpath last year.
Heaping praises at BJP government, yoga guru Baba Ramdev said the export of cow to Bangladesh for slaughtering has come down by 99 per cent.
"Crores of cows were exported to Bangladesh for slaughtering. It has been reduced by 99 per cent under the leadership of Rajnath Singhji," Ramdev said.
The three day International Yoga Festival was organised to portray different activities being planned and to be conducted by different yoga organisations, ministries, government departments and other organisations.

"Last three days have witnessed unprecedented amalgamation of thoughts and ideas on various aspects of yoga expressed by various aspects of yogic gurus and eminent yoga experts from across the country and a few from abroad," Ayush Minister Shripad Yesso Naik said.