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Yoga in Daily Life: Health Promotion in the Czech Republic

A presentation on the integration of yoga into national health strategy in the Czech Republic.

"The main message of Yoga in Daily Life is the constant endeavor to support health promotion systematically through yoga training on four levels: the physical, mental, social, and spiritual."

"Today, we are the biggest yoga association in the Czech Republic... this harmonizing of the physical, mental, social, and spiritual level, is truly the only chance to keep peace and development in our society."

A representative of the Czech Association of Yoga in Daily Life addresses a conference, detailing the organization's role in national health promotion since 1973. He aligns the yoga system's four-level approach with the Czech government's National Health Strategy 2020, highlighting specific action plans where yoga can contribute, such as promoting physical activity and mental health. The presentation concludes with statistical growth and a tribute to the founding inspiration of Vishwaguruji.

Filming location: Prague, Czech Republic

Many greetings, highly respected and dear Vishwagurujī, Paramahaṁsī, Swāmījī, Maheśvarānandajī. Many greetings to all participants in today's very important conference and event, which delivers and proclaims the message of Yoga and the Masters. Today, I wish to present and declare some important points regarding the participation of the Czech Association of Yoga in Daily Life in health promotion within the Czech Republic. I prepared this presentation with David, who is now operating the camera. We know that Yoga in Daily Life began in the Czech Republic in 1973, when Swami Maheshwaranandaji first visited. From that time, we can say yoga started to be provided systematically and in a sophisticated manner in our republic—which was, of course, Czechoslovakia at that time. What is the main message of Yoga in Daily Life? It is the constant endeavor to support health promotion systematically through yoga training on four levels, which have been mentioned many times: the physical, mental, social, and spiritual. This is offered regardless of age, nationality, religion, and social or health status, which is very important. Now, I would like to mention something important from our current government documents for this year, 2016. The national strategy of the government in the Czech Republic is such that, similar to other European countries, it guarantees citizens the right to the enjoyment of the highest standard of health without discrimination—paralleling the previous declaration from Yoga in Daily Life. The state belongs to those that allow and highly appreciate cooperation with public, private, and non-governmental organizations and societies. From this perspective, the work of the Czech Society of Yoga in Daily Life is very welcome in this joint support. For me, it was very interesting when I examined these documents last year. They were changed, and we now have a new strategy, the National Health Strategy 2020, where it is explicitly declared: physical, mental, social, and spiritual health. So we can say yoga is gaining more and more prestige, not only in our republic but in the world as well, and it can truly change much in the health support of the population. Just in autumn 2015, new action plans of our government for health promotion were declared. There are 13 action plans in total to be realized until 2020. The first five are presented here: 1. Promotion of physical activity. An adequate physical or movement regime can, of course, be supported or created through yoga. 2. Proper nutrition and eating habits. How important, from this view, is the message from Paramahaṁsī Svayam Hṛṣīkeśānanda in his books and all Czech translation publications about nutrition and eating habits? This is very important for our Czech environment. 3. Mental health. It is declared that the Czech Republic is still one of the European countries which, until now, has not enacted a special act for mental health. It is being prepared and should be realized by 2020. As was clearly declared by our previous speaker, maintaining memory and other faculties is so important for a successful and happy life. 4. Reduce health risk behavior. Issues like dependency on alcohol and drugs, among other societal problems, were also mentioned today. I feel it is very important that in the same year this action plan was declared, the book Yoga in Daily Life for Children and Youth was published. This is very relevant for the current situation in our republic. 5. Reducing health risks from the environmental and work environment. I think we, as trainers and coaches of Yoga in Daily Life, will find possibilities to go and practice in the field of environment and work stress, to help in this area as well. I mentioned the start of the history of Yoga in Daily Life in the Czech Republic in 1973. From the beginning, it was defined as a system based on the traditional concept of yoga: Vedānta. This is very important because nowadays, while yoga is very supported and respected, it is sometimes a question of business, and we encounter very strange types of yoga. This system, based on the traditional concept of yoga and Vedānta, has been very successful through all these years until today. It involves very sophisticated training techniques, unique in methodology, so it can be very successfully used for research and intervention programs. This has been declared in many research publications in Czech and English. We are very happy that we have in the Czech language publications by the author of the system, which are oriented on problems of diabetics, cardiac patients, and especially for children and youth. I will now slowly close my presentation with some statistics. Unfortunately, we do not have the statistics for this year, 2016; they will be published next year. With David, we prepared an article in the Czech scientific journal Acta Salus Vitae, which is published in English and can be easily shared with other countries. You can see how Yoga in Daily Life has developed through statistics of yoga courses between 2000 and 2014. In 2000, the book Yoga in Daily Life: The System was first published in the Czech language (and I think in other languages). In the same year, the program "Health 21: Health for Everybody in the 21st Century" was also declared, which is very symbolic. Today, we are the biggest yoga association in the Czech Republic. Here is a map of the Czech Republic, showing transparently how many places are presented and described. Of course, these are only centers, and each center distributes lessons and yoga units in many surrounding places. We will try to make the best statistics possible, and this was especially thanks to David's perfect work in counting places, classes, and so on. Thank you very much to Viśwa Gurujī for your non-stop work and non-stop inspiration through your publications and our teaching. He teaches all the time that yoga is for daily life, that we should live in nature, in coordination, harmonizing with society and civilization. Our life is like a river; it is running all the time, and we can never go back. Sometimes there are turbulences, sometimes it is very calm. But this message from Holy Gurujī and other masters, and of yoga itself—as has been said many times—this harmonizing of the physical, mental, social, and spiritual level, is truly the only chance to keep peace and development in our society. Thank you for your kind attention.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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