Day at the UN
Of the many rabbits that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had produced out of his hat during his first term as Prime Minister, the one that had multiplied fastest was yoga as part of the Indian smart power, which had the potential to influence the world. His proposal that an exercise of the body and the mind originated in India should be given an International Day by the United Nations was a masterstroke in itself.
There was no automaticity about any new idea getting accepted at the UN and, therefore, Modi chose an irresistible concept, which had already been recognised around the world. But it took some effort by our mission to the UN to find 175 countries to sponsor and to get it adopted without a vote. About 10 years ago, the idea of a Yoga Day was mooted by some NGOs, but it had no takers till Prime Minister Narendra Modi realised its potential, probably at the instance of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
Among the Days declared so far, only the most significant ones such as UN Day, Human Rights Day, Women’s Day, etc. are celebrated and many others are easily forgotten except by their original sponsors. Yoga Day gets celebrated every year since 2014 because of India’s enthusiasm and the general familiarity it had acquired in the West, particularly at the UN.
Yoga was introduced to the UN in the early ’seventies by a humble junior clerk in the Indian consulate in New York, who became a yoga and meditation guru of many celebrities in New York, including the then Secretary General of the UN, U Thant. With the assumed name of Sri Chinmoy, he himself had become a celebrity by the time he passed away in 2007.
Sri. Chinmoy established his first meditation centre in Queens, New York, and eventually attracted thousands of students in 60 countries. Since April 1970, he began giving meditation lessons in a room assigned to him at the UN. A prolific author, artist, poet, and musician, he advocated, in addition to meditation, athleticism to achieve spiritual enlightenment, including distance running, swimming, and weightlifting.
Towards the evening of his life, he started a project of “lifting” in a special contraption many celebrities, who visited the UN. Among the hundreds he “lifted” were presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and ambassadors. Mikhail Gorbachev was one of them. I too had received an invitation to be “lifted”, but I was not too sure that it was safe. Even today, we can see many members of the UN staff coming to work in white kurtas and saris identifying themselves as the disciples of Sri Chinmoy.
Sri.Chinmoy’s views on yoga were in tune with the Indian official view. He has said, ‘Yoga does not interfere with any religion. The real aspirant who has launched into spirituality and yoga will find no difficulty in remaining in his own religion. I have disciples who are Catholics, Protestants, Jews and so forth. I tell them not to give up their own religion. It is always easier and safer in the beginning for one to remain in his own religion while he practises yoga. But once he realises God, he transcends all religions. When one goes deep within and realises God, he sees that the whole universe belongs to him, and this realisation transcends all religions. Religion is inspiration. Yoga is aspiration. Divinity is perfection. Inspiration, aspiration and perfection can easily and fruitfully blossom here on earth in transcendental harmony.”
In a letter to Sri Chinmoy in April 1972, U Thant wrote, “You have indeed instilled in the minds of hundreds of people here the moral and spiritual values which both of us cherish very dearly. I shall always cherish the memorable occasion of our meetings at the United Nations.”
In the old days, yoga had its opponents in the east and the west. When we wanted to introduce a series on yoga in the India Magazine, published by the Indian embassy in Moscow, the Soviet government objected to it as anti-Communist. We were told that the spirituality propagated by yoga would promote capitalism. Not wanting to propagate capitalism in the Soviet Union, we finally settled for projecting yoga as a form of exercise sans spirituality! It was only much later that the USSR embraced yoga. In the US, Christianity had found an enemy in yoga and protested against its introduction in schools in New York and California.
Today, five years after the Yoga Day was introduced, there is universal acceptance of yoga not only as a physical exercise, but also as a means to enrich the mind and to build a better world. This year, the UN declared the theme of the Yoga Day as “Climate Action” to raise awareness of the need for global action on climate change. Practising yoga, the UN said, would provide a solution to climate change as it creates harmony between ourselves and nature.
Though the theme of Climate Action did not reverberate in India and India had its own theme “Yoga for the Heart’, the focus on climate change added a new dimension to yoga in the eyes of the world. The greatest threat that faces humanity arises out of climate change and the UN actions so far from Stockholm to Paris have not helped to reverse the trend. The stipulation that the global temperature should not exceed 2 degrees Celsius has been proved illusory even if the Paris Agreement is faithfully implemented. The withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement was ominous in this regard.
One solution to climate change is change in the pattern of consumption, thereby conserving the resources of nature for future generations. The underlying principle of yoga is the same as the Rigveda has indicated. The love, indeed the worship of Mother Earth is also fundamental to yoga and the Indian civilisation. Hopefully, the focus on climate action created by the Yoga Day will help save the world from the perils of climate change
