Hindus have welcomed Columbia Metropolitan Airport (CAE) in West Columbia (South Carolina) for hosting free yoga classes, calling it “a step in the positive direction”.
“Free Yoga at CAE”, asking people to “Come ommm with us!” on June 21, will include five free yoga classes “in the terminal – overlooking the runway”; and everyone will be provided “a free, brand spanking new CAE yoga mat as a thank you for participating!”, besides water and snacks.
“Travel can be stressful. Practicing meditation and incorporating various yoga poses into your routine can make for a more enjoyable and calmer traveling experience”, announcement states.
Commending CAE for free yoga classes, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, urged CAE to make yoga sessions a regular feature and create permanent yoga-space available free during all airport hours if it was serious to become a world-class airport, enhance the passenger experience and help reduce their stress levels.
Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization; Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.
Rajan Zed stated that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
According to a report of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: “Yoga is the most popular complementary health approach in the United States – used by 14.3% of the adult population, or 35.2 million people”. According to US National Institutes of Health; yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.
“Om” is the mystical syllable containing the universe, which in Hinduism is used to introduce and conclude religious work.
CAE, whose tagline is “Fly with ease”, serves Columbia and The Midlands of South Carolina with 10 nonstop destinations and over 60 daily flights, and handled 1.2 million passengers in 2018. James L. Whitmire is Chairman of Richland-Lexington Airport District, while Michael A. Gula is the CAE Executive Director.