Twelve schools of Houston Independent School District (HISD), largest school district in Texas, have reportedly introduced yoga. It will cover over 6,500 students at Crockett, Elmore, Hilliard, McNamara, Oak Forest, Oates, Stevens, Shadydale, Thurgood Marshall, and Whittier elementary schools, as well as Forest Brook Middle and North Forest High schools this year, reports suggest.
Calling it a “step in the right direction”, distinguished Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, suggested all school districts of Texas to incorporate yoga in the lives of the students. 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 pointed out. Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, further said 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 National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to an estimate, about 21 million Americans, including many celebrities, now practice yoga. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Rajan Zed added.
About 100 languages are spoken in HISD, seventh-largest school district in USA, which has about 213,000 students in 283 schools. Juliet Stipeche and Rhonda Skillern-Jones are the President and First Vice President respectively of its Board of Education, while Dr. Terry B. Grier is Superintendent of Schools.