By Radhika Nagrath
Rita, a yoga teacher from Lebanon, has been visiting the International Yoga Festival since 2023. She sees this as an opportunity to break down barriers and open her heart to the power of love. Rita hopes to inspire people of all nationalities to embrace the peace and healing that yoga, Rishikesh, and the Ganga River can bring. She believes that by spreading love, authenticity, and confidence, we can dissolve suffering, pain, and injustice.
Rita shares, “I feel grateful to bring a sense of peace to a world filled with turmoil while carrying the message of union from this land of yoga.” Through her interactions with people from Israel, Rita has shared dreams of peace and hopes that these dreams will continue to unite us beyond nationality and politics. Her message to global leaders is one of hope. She said, “Out of destruction can come new beginnings and a path to peace. I encourage the leaders to recognise the impact of their actions and to strive for a world filled with gratitude, humanity, and love.” Many other yoga enthusiasts took back the message of peace and love from the International Yoga Festival 2025 organised at the land of yoga, Rishikesh, in Parmarth Niketan ashram. Year after year these Yogacharyas have been coming to the festival and taking back home the message of love and peace.
Swami Chidanand Saraswati, Head, Parmarth Niketan, says, “The only objective of organising this International Yoga Festival is that one learns to be anchored in peace. Whatever be the circumstances, one has to live in peace. Yoga teaches us to go beyond boundaries of countries and religions and we are amazed to see so many participants from war gripped countries that have come here for peace and take home the message of love for humanity from this land of yoga.”
Another yoga teacher from Israel, Erika Rachel Kauffman speaks her heart out in the dining tent at Parmarth Niketan saying, “I see that people in Israel and other war-torn countries have now started living with pain, suffering and this attachment to pain is so real that physically consuming it becomes hard to feel love and peace. It goes deeply in the psyche and until we unlearn pain, hurt and embrace the quiet gift of land and water as it supports us undivided.” Erica said that embracing holistic yoga, we land inside the feminine energy of love, creation and uncomplicated love opens. She called out to all mothers in all the lands to be courageous, to honour pain and find calm so that their love can give strength to men, sons, brothers of all lands.
When asked how yoga in war torn countries of the world can find its way through the feminine energy, she said, “I have been coming as a presenter in IYF for 20 years and am thankful to India and Sadhvi Bhagawati, the Director of the International Festival, for the gift of yoga to all the humanity beyond borders, ethnicities to the humanity.
Nastasia from Ukraine, another yoga enthusiast, expressed her joy while participating in the Yoga festival in Parmarth Niketan. She said, “I had great difficulty in landing at this place. Our airport in Ukraine was sealed. I had to go to another city to catch a flight to India. After coming here, I feel rejuvenated. With pain and anxiety in our home country, we felt torn growing old faster and developing wrinkles on our faces even before old age. After coming here all that anxiety and fear is gone.” She said it was high time that global leaders realised the aftermath of war and took to the message of love and peace. She said she takes a piece of freshness from Ganga for her friends and brothers who are forcibly made to join the military in Ukraine to fight.
