Isha Foundation founder Jaggi Vasudev
Learning yoga appears to be just a mobile app away. The Isha Foundation's 'Yoga Tools from Sadhguru' app offers seven yoga practice video demonstrations of 5 minute each as part of the first International Day of Yoga celebrations.
But the organisation's founder Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev clarifies, "This is not serious Yoga, this is called as UpaYoga or Pre Yoga. It's a stepping stone for Yoga. We want people to have a taste of Yoga and experience and well-being that it offers. From that they can graduate to higher levels of yoga later on."
Around 15,000 people joined the Yoga Day celebrations in Chennai to learn a few asanas. Defining yoga as science and technology for inner well-being, the Sadhguru says it is important that the discipline is liberated from the Indian cultural origins and the UN's declaration does just that. "If you make it very Indian, the world will not take it. We have to liberate Yoga from its national boundaries and make it available to every human being on the planet," he said.
Responding to criticism by some groups that yoga propagates pro-Hindu agenda, Vasudev said this belief is "out of ignorance". "Calling yoga Hindu is like saying gravity is Christian. So this is not about Hindu or Muslim or whoever. You can use technologies of the world no matter what your belief systems are. Similarly you can use inner technology, no matter what your belief systems are," he said.