International Yoga Conference

Yoga for health and social transformation were the key issues of the summit:

A four-day international conference on yoga was held at auditorium of Patanjali Yog Peeth. The conference witnessed deliberations and discussions by crème de la crème of yoga enthusiasts from across the world. The conference aimed at establishing how Yoga can be used for social transformation in today's degraded atmosphere apart from its therapeutic and educative values. This was the first international conference by Patanjali Yog peeth wherein delegates from 20 countries participated. Inaugurating the conference Baba Ramdev said, "Yoga is a complete science and its wide acceptance in the West has proven that it can become an effective medium in resolving the societal issues." Delegates chanced to attend morning yoga camps with Ramdev and had brush with Indian culture and Vedic traditions performing yajnas (sacrificial fires). Amongst the foreign delegates participating on the first day were Dr. Luciano Bernardi from university of Pavia, Italy, Dr. Elisa Kozasa from Sao Paulo Brazil, Kim Innes from university of Virginia, US, John Kapner from international association of yoga therapies, US, Leigh Blashki from Australian institute of yoga therapy, Australia and Dr. Robin Monro from Yoga Biomedical Trust, London. The four-day programme was telecast live on all days at Aastha channel.

"Yoga can be used to alter or readjust important cardiovascular reflexes, since it is an integrated system and lack of oxygen becomes a reason for functional abnormality. It has been proved by clinical trials as well," said Luciano Bernardi, M.D from university of Pavia, Italy. "We have done case studies on trekkers to Everest North Face Base Camp Tibet on 26 July 2004. It was observed that breathing rate was much lower in yoga practitioners than the non yoga practitioners. Slow deep breathing increases oxygen in the blood. Pranayama is specially effective for high altitude dwellers," added Luciano. Efficiency of breathing is more important than quantity, says the study undertaken by Luciano.

Robert Saper M.D from Boston medical centre US gave talk on the use of yoga for low back pain. Stating the fact that it was not a problem of only the eastern countries but a major problem of the west, Robert said, "Low back pain treatments cause 50 billion dollars annual direct costs of US. Yoga is the only effective low cost way to get over the spine related problems." Yoga therapy addresses multi dimensions in treatment- physical, psychosocial and spiritual dimensions. US must emulate Indians who are the most intensive yoga practitioners. "6.3 per cent of whites use yoga socio economic 3.3 % African non whites use yoga in US," he added. Also people form low socio economic status suffer from worse possible back pain. Awareness needs to be s pread to the lower strata as well.

For the first time in Haridwar 2000 headphone translators were used which used bilingual translation from Hindi to English and vice versa. The foreign delegates enjoyed the accented translation of talks on yoga and the Indian delegates from various parts of the country could grasp the talks of these experts.