CPM launches yoga training programme

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM (Times of India Trivandrum Edition) :

The CPM on Sunday launched a yoga training programme under a `non-political' society , the Indian Martial Arts Academy and Yoga Study Centre, as part of its experiments to find new followers.

The first show of the programme, in which around 1,200 trained participants displayed their skills, was held at the Jawahar Municipal Stadium in the evening.

Looking on was the top brass of the party including state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, politburo member Pinarayi Vijayan, district secretary P Jayarajan, P K Sreemathi, MP , E P Jayarajan and M V Jayarajan.

Yogi and Manav Ekta Mission founder Sri M, the chief guest, said yoga had a centuriesold tradition and it doesn't belong to a particular religion.
"The excavations at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa had unearthed idols sitting in padmasana. This shows yoga was here even before the Aryan invasion and it helps us have a healthy body and mind," he said. "Moreover, it also helps control the senses and thus prevent fury and aggression. If we regularly practice it, it would help us im prove ourselves and also the world around us."
Sri M also named this `secular yoga' as `Chethana Yoga'.

• P Jayarajan, welcoming the gathering, said the initiative is not a CPM movement and the party supported it because some communal forces were misusing yoga.

  "Yoga is part of our traditional knowledge and this face has been misunderstood. So, we decided to support the initiative which takes the ancient practice to the society to help us have a better body and mind," he said.

  Even as he said it is wrong to say that certain religions can not practice yoga, Jayarajan said a special curriculum, based on Ashtanga Yoga, has been developed by experts so that people from all religions can practice it.

  Yoga training would be organized at different places in the state, as part of the new venture.

  Incidentally , ahead of the Lok Sabha election in 2014, the CPM had organized seminars and exhibitions to woo the Christian settlers and Muslims in Kannur. Now, the party seems to believe that the road of yoga would lead it to the majority community and the middles class irrespective of religion, as health consciousness has become the in-thing among them.