from experience to wisdom

“You can only give what you yourself have experienced. If you wish to help others through the healing power of Yoga, you have to put yourself at the service of the art and then through experience gain understanding.

Remember that experience and knowledge born of experience are a million times superior to accumulated and acquired knowledge. Experienced knowledge is subjective and it is factual, whereas acquired knowledge, being objective, may leave the stain of doubts. So learn, do, re-learn, experience, and you will be able to teach with confidence, courage and clarity.” ~~BKS Iyengar, from his book, Tree of Yoga, on “The Healing Art” p. 111-112.

Parivrtta Utthita Hasta Padangusthasana

health begins with the body

 “Health begins with firmness in body, deepens to emotional stability, then leads to intellectual clarity, wisdom, and finally the unveiling of the soul. Heath can be categorized in many ways. There is physical health, which we are all familiar with, but there is also moral health, mental health, intellectual health, and even the health of our consciousness, health of our conscience, and ultimately divine health.

But a yogi never forgets that health must begin with the body. Your body is the child of your soul. You must nourish and train your child. Physical health is not a commodity to be bargained for. Nor can it be swallowed in the form of drugs and pills. It has to be earned through sweat. It is something we must build up. You have to create within yourself the experience of beauty, liberation, and infinity. This is health.” ~~BKS Iyengar, “Light on Life” from the chapter on “Stability—the physical body (Asana)” p. 23-4.

Photograph is Certified Iyengar Yoga Teacher Jennifer Beaumont practicing a stage of Padangustha Dhanurasana

Body of fire, cool brain

“How the sun

blazes

for everyone just

so joyfully

as it rises

under the lashes of my own eyes...

I am so many!

What is my name?

What is the name

of the deep breath I would take

over and over

for all of us? Call it

Whatever you want, it is

happiness, it is another one

of the ways to enter the

fire.” ~~

Mary Oliver, from “ Sunrise” ~~

“ALL of the poses should be practiced with your head and brain in this state of quiet” Manouso Manos ~~

“During the practice of āsanas, it is the body alone which should be active, while the brain should remain passive, watchful and alert. “ BKS Iyengar, Light on Yoga, p 58.

Padangustha Dhanurasana  

Begin at the beginning

 “Yoga offers us techniques to become aware, to expand and penetrate, and to change and evolve in order to become competent in the lives we live and to initiate sensitivity and receptivity toward the life of which we are still only dimly aware. We begin at the level of the physical body, the aspect of ourselves that is more concrete and accessible to all of us. It is here that Yogāsana and pranayama practice allow us to understand our body with ever greater insight and through the body to understand our mind and reach our soul. To a yogi, the body is a laboratory for life, a field of experimentation and perpetual research.” ~~BKS Iyengar, “Light on Life”, p 22.

Chelsea Tiernan, CIYT teaching standing poses in Level 1 class at the Iyengar Yoga Center of Grand Rapids

live, work & practice

“ The yogis of ancient India were householders, and reached the zenith of Yoga while living amidst household activities surrounded by families and children. Treat the practice of yoga as part of your life, allowing it space within your normal activities. When you have provided a framework of regular practice within the structure of your daily life, you can leave it to the divine grace to act in its own time. When divine grace comes, experience it, and go on working.”

— BKS Iyengar, on Family Life from “Tree of Yoga”, p. 28-9.

Rajakapotāsana. Another photograph from practice on BKS Iyengar’s Birthday, Dec 14, 2017

prayers fly from all directions

“Do you bow your head when you pray or do you look up into that blue space?
Take your choice, prayers fly from all directions.
And don’t worry about what language you use,
God no doubt understands them all.”

— From “Whistling Swans” by Mary Oliver

balance in the present

“A child’s mind lives in the present and does not go the past or the future.”

— B.K.S. Iyengar "On Childhood", from "Tree of Yoga"

mother & daughter practicing Rajakapostasana. Who is teaching who?

“Balance in the body is the foundation for balance in life. In whatever position one is in, or in whatever condition in life one is placed, one must find balance. Balance is the state of the present—the here and now. If you balance in the present, you are living in Eternity. When the intellect is stable, there is no past, no future, only present. Do not live in the future; only the present is real. The mind takes you constantly to the future, as it plans, worries, and wonders. Memory takes you to the past, as it ruminates and regrets. Only the Self takes you to the present, for the divine can be experienced only now. The past, present, and future are held together in each Asana as thought, word, and deed become one.”

— B.K.S. Iyengar, "Light on Life," p. 43-44

inner freedom

I am one of the multitude Yoga practitioners, Yoga students, infinitely indebted to Yogacharya BKS Iyengar. Today would be his 99th birthday. 

“Yoga allows you to rediscover a sense of wholeness in your life, where you do not feel like you are constantly trying to fit the broken pieces together. Yoga allows you to find an inner peace that is not ruffled and riled by the endless stresses and struggles of life. Yoga allows you to find a new kind of freedom that you may not have known even existed. To a yogi, freedom implies not being battered by the dialogues of life, its ups and downs, its pleasures and its suffering. It implies equanimity and ultimately that there is an inner serene core of one’s being that is never out of touch with the unchanging, eternal infinite.”

— BKS Iyengar, introduction to “Light on Life” p. Xiv.