During the week of International Yoga
Day, which is on June 21st, the Gujarati Society of Southern California was
honored to host Bhupendra Soneji from Sarathi Yoga Foundation with assistance
from Marge from Sarathi Yoga Foundation as well. This event took place at the
Sanatan Dharma Temple in Norwalk on Sunday, June 24th.
This event was well-attended by over 60
yoga enthusiasts, who showed up with excitement to perform yoga. Men and women
of all ages were present; grandparents and grandkids were present in the
audience. The event began with Soneji introducing the purpose of yoga followed
by the Gyan hand mudra with which to sit with everyday - this mudra improves
our concentration and sharpen’s our memory. This mudra causes us to bring our
awareness to our hand posture, thus improving concentration and focus.
The crowd was instructed to sit holding
this mudra through out the session. Following the mudras demonstration, several
breathing techniques were discussed such as one for stomach rejuvenation and another
one for chest rejuvenation. These breathing techniques are essential to
rejuvenate our energy and balance our life force, which restores our ideal
health.
Surya Namaskar is a series of postures
that will help you gain the utmost benefits of healthier body and mind. During
this practice, the spine is bent and stretched and the internal organs get a
massage. This helps balancing the hormone system. Marge gracefully demonstrated
the postures of Surya Namaskaar as the crowd practiced the postures actively.
The recommendation was to practice these postures at least one time every day,
preferably in the morning.
Finally, we ended the yoga session with
Yoganidra, which is the yogic way of sleeping or relaxing, a powerful technique
to remove stress from all facets of life. Soneji guided us through this portion
as we lay with our eyes closed on our yoga mats.
The yoga session was followed by a
Question and Answer session and a traditional Gujarati dinner. This event was
well-received by the audience.
Pramod Mistry, B.U. Patel, G.J. Zala and Jawahar Shah serve on GSSC’s executive board.
Serving on the Board of Trustees are
Mistry, Patel, Zala, Ketan Sharma, Mahesh Wadher, Bharat J. Patel, Ramesh
Patel, Uka Solanki, Bhavna J. Patel, Manu Shah, Anil Shah, Pravin Patel, Suru
Manek, Jaswant Modi, Popat Savla, Girish Patel, Jasubhai Patel, Manoj Maniar,
Kirit Patel and Manu Patolia.
More information about the organization can be found at www.GujaratiSoCal.org.