Nouf Marwaai: Transforming Saudi Arabia through Yoga

Yoga was once almost unheard of in Saudi Arabia in the last century but a girl, who was suffering serious health problems back then, managed to change her life with the help of India’s ancient practice. Years later, the girl, Nouf Marwaai, went on to become Saudi Arabia’s first certified yoga instructor.

Speaking at News18 SheShakti 2024, Marwaai, President, Saudi Yoga Committee, recalled his association with yoga. She said her life was shadowed by severe health challenges at the age of 18 and doctors told her parents that her chances of survival were slim.

“When I was 18 years old, yoga was not there…. I started practising yoga after getting a book from my father. It was not easy to follow. That year in 1998 doctors told my parents that I won’t live anymore,” she said.

After reading the book, Marwaai, who awarded India’s fourth-highest civilian honour Padma Shri in 2018, turned to the internet to further explore yoga and its practice.

“I started practising yoga after researching on internet. Something inside me changed. I had sleeping disorders when I was young. I was told it cannot be cured, I was in depression and panic attacks. I was not able to move… Then I fell in love with Yoga. Since then till today, I never stopped practising Yoga,” she said.

Marwaai said that she gets a lot of support from the Saudi government to train youth in yoga and also promote the practice.

Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, Motivational Speaker & Author also shared how yoga changed her life after she came to India, leaving her home in the US.

“Yoga means union. But I actually think about it as reunion. Through yoga, we become one with divine. Through yoga, we remember I am one,” she said.

Saraswati further said many people are suffering because they feel they are not enough, a feeling which she call “The Hollywood Mindset”.

She said, “Most of us grown up with a belief who we are: our bodies, size, share, history, experience, our roles, our relations, our personalities so we suffer. This is what I called the Hollywood mindset… We suffer because we feel we are not enough. When I came to India and had gone to banks of Ganga in Rishikesh, I had an experience which shifted me from the Hollywood mindset to Himalayan mindset. Himalayan mindset tells us, you have a body but you are not a body, you are soul, spirit, consciousness. There is nothing you are lacking…. Remember the full truth is that you are full. There is nothing lacking. Whatever religion you follow, there is one thing that is true across all traditions ‘The Divine of Infinite’.”