MILLBURY, MA–First Congregational Church of Millbury, an affiliate of United Church of Christ in Millbury, MA, will yoga classes from Jan. 20 to Feb. 24, according the Church’s website.
Millbury First Church, whose history goes back to 1747, and which calls itself “friendly church on the hill”, is hosting weekly class on Fridays for all levels of mat and chair yoga and accessible to all levels of fitness by certified yoga instructor Carol Dearborn. The classes, whose proceeds will benefit the Church, are structured to make one feel revitalized in body and mind, according to reports.
Church website states: “Events during the week such as yoga, book studies, and our knitting group fill our community with spiritual food”. “We follow the teaching of Jesus Christ and worship God through traditional spiritual practices, education, mission, and ministry” it adds. Reverend Carol Reynolds is the Pastor.
Welcoming Millbury First Church for hosting yoga classes, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, urged all the Massachusetts public schools to introduce multi-beneficial yoga programs in their curriculums.
Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, said Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism.
Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.