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YOGA FOR THE HANDICAPPED
Swami Anandananda Saraswati
It is really a great joy to be here and to see in a solid, tangible form the inspiration of our guru, Paramahamsa Satyananda, over the past twenty years. I am sure that this convention is generating a tremendous amount of inspiration among many more people from every nook and corner of India and the world.
The inspiration which I received from Paramahamsaji was to bring yoga to people who are suffering. In 1981, I went for the first time to a social center where physically and mentally handicapped persons were gathered, to try an experiment with yoga. I was shocked by the tremendous number of physically and mentally handicapped people who are living in Italy and in Europe today; some statistics say nearly 14% of the population. There is very little awareness of such people, because they are not seen, they are hidden.
I discovered that the social center was only a parking ground for sick, handicapped and disabled persons, who were not kept in their homes because their parents and relatives did not know what to do with them and could not handle them. We have discovered that these relatives are also handicapped, because they do not know how to cope with a son, with a father, with a sister, with an uncle or an aunt who has to live in a different way.
I did not have any experience of teaching yoga to physically and mentally retarded and disabled persons, but nevertheless, I immediately decided to teach them regularly for a three month trial period. There were people from twelve years of age up to fifty or sixty years, with different kinds of handicaps, all mixed up together. Definitely, my first meeting with them and their first introduction to yoga was not a typical yoga class! I had to become like a child and speak to them in their language. I gradually introduced a few physical techniques to them from the pawanmuktasana and shakti bandha series.
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