Dehradun: The ongoing International Yog Festival, organised by the state tourism department and Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam (GMVN) at Ganga Resort in Muni Ki Reti, is being thronged by thousands of visitors from across the country and abroad.
On the fifth day of the festival, Mooji Baba, a Jamaican spiritual teacher, conducted a special spiritual session and Dr Madan Kataria, a medical doctor from Mumbai who is popularly referred to as the “Guru of Giggling”, held a session for participants. Like the previous four days of the festival, Friday also started with “Ganga Aarti” in the morning.
Tim Jonas, 38, who has come from Poland to attend the festival, told TOI, “There is hardly any event in the world which is attended by revered gurus like Yogini Usha Mata, Mooji Baba, Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, BK Shivani, Gaur Gopal Das, Swami Atma Swaroop, and others. We have been blessed to be a part of this week-long yog festival.”
The festival was launched by chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat along with his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath on March 1. Since then, the festival has been welcoming around 3,000 visitors (on an average) every day.
“The response has been very good. The yoga and spiritual knowledge seekers are thronging the festival to attain physical fitness and mental peace and we are successfully delivering on their expectations,” said Dileep Jawalkar, secretary of tourism department.
The festival has so far been attended by several prominent personalities, including Shri Shri Ravi Shankar, Juna akhara’s Avdheshanand Giri, former South African cricket star Jonty Rhodes, Grand Master Akshar, and others.
The event offers yoga, spiritual sessions, medical therapies, ancient therapeutic healing like gong bath, and musical evenings — all under one roof.
Iva Ashish Shrivastava, MD of GMVN, said, “We want yoga to be a self-sustainable model. This event is already bearing fabulous results. We are confident that in the coming years, yoga will be seen as a treatment for physical and mental issues. Also, yoga will provide job opportunities to many.”
On Saturday, the concluding day of the festival, visitors will get to enjoy a musical performance by renowned singer Anuradha Paudwal and a special spiritual session by Yogini Usha Mata.
