Visakhapatnam: The international status to yoga with June 21 being celebrated as World Yoga Day has pushed the demand of yoga courses so much so that not a single seat is vacant in the Yoga department of Andhra University this academic year, the first full-fledged yoga institution in the state.
The department has witnessed a remarkable jump in the number of applications received this year for various courses.
“Earlier, we used to have only 50 students including the practitioner, but it has risen by about 10 times to 500. It could be attributed to the government's serious intervention to promote yoga and the growing faith of people in the healing power of yoga," said Andhra University's Yoga Department assistant professor Dr K. Ramesh Babu.
Established in 1985, the AU Yoga department runs a three-month certificate, diploma in Yoga (six months) and PG Diploma (one year) courses in yoga. This apart, it has introduced a two-year MA in Yoga and Consciousness course from 2012 and is planning to provide M.Phil and PhD programmes soon in view of the growing demand of yoga courses. The 70 seats in diploma and 60 in PG diploma have been filled up.
"Even doing a basic three month certificate course, some students are getting a chance to work as yoga instructor in foreign countries. Many have turned entrepreneurs opening yoga instruction centre. I can say the career opportunities have widened rapidly and would see more growth down the years," said Mr Ramesh Babu.
The World Health Organisation defines health as the state of a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. People across the world have realised that they could attain complete well-being through yoga. One deep inhalation in the breathing control technique gets 2,500 ml of fresh air in our body. Yoga can reduce stress, heal chronic diseases and control diabetes," said another assistant professor of the department Dr R. Tulasi Rao.
Though a section of the Muslim and Christian community opposes the yoga practices, students from those religions are also pursing courses in the AU yoga department. Yoga is both quite popular and controversial in a Muslim country like Iran. But, students from Iran studying in Andhra University are also taking up yoga courses as an additional qualification. "We have students from all religions. There is a misconception that yoga propagates Hindu religion. There are 196 yoga sutras and no where the name of any religion or god is mentioned. Yoga is completely secular,” said Mr Ramesh Babu.
