Look: Hundreds roll out mats to celebrate yoga festival in Abu Dhabi

Hundreds of community members from diverse nationalities rolled out their colourful mats to mark the ninth International Yoga Day in the UAE Capital.

Held under the theme: 'The world is one family', the event united young and old members of families, and school students at the Atrium of Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec) – the largest exhibition venue in the Middle East.

Stretching, twisting and bending their bodies in different postures, the yoga enthusiasts led by Sheikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE’s Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, promoted the message of love, peace, cooperation and harmony.

The Emirati minister, in his address, underlined that the annual event gives everyone an opportunity to highlight their “collective dedication to human unity and goodwill”.

“Yoga asks that we respect one another and seek to understand each other’s good motives, whatever our cultural differences and personal beliefs may be. Yoga contributes to the promotion of the common human values that unite us all in pursuit of happiness, peace, and prosperity,” said Sheikh Nahyan, who was the event’s chief guest, and was welcomed by Sunjay Sudhir, Ambassador of India to the UAE.

Sheikh Nahyan noted that yoga encourages a healthy lifestyle and cultivation of habits that contribute to the happiness of individuals and societies.

“By drawing attention to the relationship between healthy lifestyles and happiness, yoga empowers individuals to pursue a healthier and happier life and helps to enrich the human spirit. That human spirit encompasses the unity of our physical, intellectual, and spiritual abilities. It involves our creativity, our ambition, our understanding, our morality – all those qualities that make us human.”

Sheikh Nahyan highlighted that enriching the human spirit fosters an optimistic outlook on the future of the world.

“It enables the creation of productive teams in the workplace and in societies.”

The minister expressed his admiration for Indians and India, which gifted yoga to the world.

“I admire India’s achievements and progress, its people’s devotion to their heritage, as well as their vision for the future of their country. I admire the fact that India’s large non-resident population, such as here in the UAE, have a strong sense of identification with their home country,” he said to cheerful applause from the gathering.

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