"Yoga is fearless, is illuminating, and is a journey that does not end with death" - says Lord Krishna in Bhagavad Gita

Since the announcement of June 21 as an international day and there will be celebrations in the country, so many reactions started coming in and against it. While it is much important to have freedom to follow whichever path a person wants, it is also important not to override other beliefs. People should have the choice to do or not. Although the government is trying to persuade across all the boards and people, it should be sincere to the history and the culture, that "Yoga is the soul of Hinduism" and it cannot be separated from it, whoever and in whatever way they try to do so. There is no point to deny that it has been a practiced since the Vedic times and immense literature from the Hinduism, right from The Bhagavad Gita. Therefore government should announce that it will not make it compulsory to other religions in any form. 

The word Yoga, comes from the Sanskrit word 'Yuj' (To yoke- means to join together), joining 'Atma' with 'Parmatma'. Thus, one should understand that the yoga is not only a few asanas, who people have seen and practiced from various teachers.  Although some modern versions of yoga focus mostly on shaping and controlling the body, it is more applicable in reference to the mind of a person. Its daily practice is beneficial in itself, leading to the improved health and joy in living. However, it is more that, in the sense that its practice to the advanced levels takes closer to enlightenment (the state where individuals are established in their real nature, which is pure consciousness) and thus to the god, to help achieve union with god. Many gurus, like Ramkrishna Paramhans have achieved such state, thereby they told to world that they have seen god. Thus, it is a spiritual and religious practice used to enlighten and attain Samadhi. And, the ultimate goal of yoga, as said in The Bhagavad Gita, is the attainment of liberation (Moksha) from day to day suffering and cycling of birth and death (Sansar). 

This world is the "world of surveys" and many such surveys have revealed that more than half of the people in America and for the matter many across the globe have become interested in yoga. Thus it has in a sense become a big industry. Thus it would not be a surprise that many will fall to this pray. Due to this, many feel that there is a deliberate attempt to separate yoga from Hindusim. In other words, few people, from our soil as well as from the west are trying to "secularize' it. Few yoga scholars of today are denying the fact that the yoga spread in the west from the works of great teachers like  T Krishnamacharya, K Pattabhi Jois and BKS Iyengar – all doing their morning and evening prayers to their chosen Hindu deities and proudly wearing their Hindu identity on their foreheads. Most of the yoga taught and practiced in the west is "hatha yoga", and that the focus on the body was only a very minor aspect of yoga delineated by the great compiler of the yoga aphorisms, Patanjali. In fact, of the 196 sutras in Patanjali's Yogasutras, only three focus on the body. The primary aim of yoga, Patanjali stressed in the second sutra, is to still the mind for a transformation of consciousness. Thus, it is simply to urge the world to acknowledge that yoga has its roots in the millennia-old Indian traditions now known as Hinduism. There is no demand that those who do yoga profess any attachment to Hinduism, let alone become Hindus!!!