International Yoga Day celebrated in Victoria Park
Victoria Park became a place of mental and physical calm last weekend when around 80 people took part in a morning of yoga.
Organised by Bharati Shakha Newbury, a locally-based Hindu social and cultural group, in association with Swasti Yoga and Newbury Town Council, Newbury celebrated its first International Yoga Day on Saturday, June 18.
Newbury’s deputy mayor Nigel Foot was among the participants and he was very pleased with the event.
He said: “It was very nice to see the Newbury community, especially the youth, come together for this event.
“This must be an annual event from here on.”
Luckily, the weather was good for the hour’s yoga which began at 9am, with only a little bit of drizzle coming down just before 10.
Bharati Shakha Newbury member Sanjeev Agrawala said: “Yoga is the soul of Indian culture which enriches its heritage, ideology and path of living.
“There have been many scripts about yoga written all over India that have been passed on from guru to shishya (student).
“Around 5,000 years ago Sage Patanjali consolidated all the knowledge of yoga into 195 sutras (aphorisms) that are used as a base for yoga even now.”
In 2014, the United Nations officially proclaimed June 21 as International Yoga Day after recognising that yoga provides a holistic approach to health and wellbeing.
Bharati Shakha Newbury plans to make this local edition of International Yoga Day an annual event going forward.
