UNITED STATES, November 11, 2013 (Huffington Post): India has been described by some traditional texts as Sa Prathama Sanskrati Vishvavara, the first and supreme culture in the world. To this day, the South Asian country remains a hotspring of ancient wisdom on mind-body health and spirituality.
This wisdom has been steadily permeating American life for the past century. Mindfulness — the cultivation of a focused awareness on the present moment, a concept with origins in ancient Indian philosophy — is “gaining its fair share of attention” in the West, with increasing numbers of Americans practicing meditation, according to a recent New York Times Magazine cover story. Words like guru, karma nirvana and om are firmly situated in our cultural vocabulary, and yoga and meditation have become the favorite past time of everyone from supermodels to high-powered CEOs.
The Indian way has spread far beyond the U.S., and tourists from around the world are flocking to the densely-populated country in search of inner peace. India is the fastest-growing destination for wellness tourism, with an average of 22 percent annual growth, according to recent data from Stanford Research Center funded by Spafinder Wellness.
One reason we should look to India as an example of what it means to live well is that it’s the birthplace of yoga. Arguably India’s most popular export, yoga (Sanskrit for “divine union”) has been passed down from guru to student for many centuries. Traditionally, yoga is practiced with the goal of stilling the thoughts of the unruly mind so that the individual can eventually achieve moksha (liberation). Aside from yoga’s spiritual aims, the physical and mental health benefits of the practice are extensive, from decreased anxiety to reduced neck and lower back pain to increased sexual function.
Further reasons are: They view health from a holistic perspective, they embrace vegetarianism, they have strong family values, they cook with turmeric, they’re making low-cost health innovations, they live in color, they have a culture that prizes compassion, they know that breathing is crucial to good health, they celebrate the power of music, and they value inner wisdom.
For an in-depth description of the reasons we should look to India as an example of what it means to live well see ‘source’ above.