SRINAGAR, Jun 21: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday highlighted the potential of yoga to attract more tourists to Jammu and Kashmir, thereby providing new livelihood opportunities for local residents.
Addressing a gathering on the 10th International Yoga Day on the banks of Dal Lake, Modi cited an example from Egypt where yoga was used to promote tourism. “I recently saw a video from Egypt. They organized a competition and awarded the best yoga photographs and videos from iconic tourist places in the country. In the pictures and videos, I saw girls from Egypt standing in front of the iconic Pyramids doing yoga. It was so attractive. For Kashmir, yoga can become such a big source of livelihood. It can become a center of attraction for tourists,” he said to the yoga practitioners on the lawns of SKICC.
Originally scheduled to be held outdoors, the event was moved indoors due to early morning rain. Despite the adverse weather, Modi addressed the gathering after the rain stopped, commending their determination to stay. “Our daughters used their yoga mats to protect themselves from rain but they did not leave. It is heartening to see,” he remarked.
Modi emphasized that many people associate yoga with a spiritual journey aimed at finding God, which can deter them from practicing it. “When people talk about yoga, most of them think it is a spiritual journey as if it is to find Allah, Ishwar, or God. Leave aside the spiritual journey for now; you can focus on personal development and yoga is part of that. If you approach it that way, I am sure you will get a lot of benefits. Personal development leads to the benefit of society which in turn leads to the benefit of humankind,” he said.
The Prime Minister pointed out that yoga, once incorporated into daily life, provides continuous benefits. “We have to understand the importance of yoga in life. Just like brushing teeth or combing hair becomes a daily routine, with similar ease yoga becomes a process to follow when you get used to it. It keeps giving benefits every moment,” he added.
Modi also mentioned the benefits of focused attention, using the example of trainers who help improve memory power through special techniques. “The attention is linked to how much our mind is focused. You must have seen many people develop techniques to improve memory power and for those who follow the process, their memory power improves. Similarly, working with a focus on any issue will give the best results, which leads to personal development, and with the least exertion, you get maximum satisfaction. If you do something while your attention is divided among ten things, it increases exhaustion,” he explained.
