A Catholic priest is telling the British House of Lords of the benefits of yoga to mark International Yoga Day 2018 on June 21. Fr Joe Pereira told AsiaNews that he has been practicing Iyengar Yoga for 50 years, adding that his Kripa Foundation has used it “to help in the rehabilitation of people with alcohol and drug problems.

“The Kripa Foundation offers an intense program of yoga and meditation designed especially for people who undergo treatments and recovery sessions [from drug addiction].”

The Indian priest says that yoga has “the power to help us get in touch with the true inner self and to transcend the world of Prakriti [physical matter] and of materialism and to operate from a level of awareness which brings us to our essential ‘uniqueness’.”